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Rh of the "dunes," and very near the bay, are of much greater antiquity. All these trees must have grown up since the Gulf retreated behind Matagorda Island, which at this point is about 8 miles distant from the mainland. From all of which it follows as highly probable that the human remains, which I have described, were inhumed at a period when the broad waves of the sea resounded along the shore of the mainland, and before the sail of a ship had gleamed on the Gulf of Mexico.

Both history and tradition preserve the names of several tribes of Texas Indians, which had become extinct or had been blended with other tribes before the State was first colonized by Anglo-Americans, at which period, A. D. 1821, the only tribes with which the settlers came in contact were the Comanches, Wacos, Tawacanies, Ionies, Keechies, Lipaus, Tonkaways, and Carancaways. Of all these tribes the last named was the most remarkable. They inhabited the coast, and ranged from Galveston Island to the Rio Grande. The men were of tall stature, generally 6 feet high, and the bow of every warrior was as long as his body. These Indians navigated the bays and inlets in canoes, and subsisted, to a considerable extent, on fish. They were believed by many of the early settlers to be cannibals; but it is probable that the only cannibalism to which they were addicted was that which was occasionally practised by the Tonkaways, if not by all the tribes of Texas. This consisted in eating bits of an enemy's flesh at their war dances to inspire them with courage. A dance and feast of this kind I once witnessed at a settlement on the Colorado, where the Tonkaways were temporarily camped. A party of its braves on a war tramp slew a Comanche, and upon their return to their tribe brought with them a portion of the dried flesh of their slain foeman. This human "tasajo," after being boiled, was partaken of by the warriors of the tribe with cries and gestures of exultation. Their thievish and murderous propensities early involved them in war with the settlers of Austin Colony, by whom they were repeatedly defeated with severe loss, in consequence of which, about the year 1825, they fled west of San Antonio River, whither they were pursued by Austin at the head of a strong party of his colonists. When he arrived at the Manahuila Creek, 6 miles east of Galliad—then called La Bahia—he was met by a Catholic priest of that place, who bore a proposition from the Carancaways, that if Austin would desist from hostilities they would never in future range east of the San Antonio.

Austin agreed to this proposition and counter-marched his force. The Carancaways, however, did not long keep their promise. A few years afterwards several parties of them returned to the Colorado, their favorite resort, and committed divers thefts and atrocious murders, for which they were again severely scourged by the colonists. Efforts were long made by the Catholic missionaries to christianize these savages, and the mission of Refugio, 30 miles south of Galliad, was, I believe, founded for that special purpose. But the Carancaways