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Rh been established by any legitimate authority. The statistical information furnished by Pike, in the narrative of his expedition undertaken in 1807, was deemed very valuable, though it added nothing to the accuracy of the geographical knowledge of the country. The northern portion was inhabited by the Camanches, Apaches, Mescaleros, and other predatory tribes of Indians; and the few white inhabitants at the south were careless and indifferent as to its cultivation, and appeared entirely ignorant of its resources and its capacity for improvement. It was quite natural, therefore, that the most erroneous ideas should have been entertained with regard to its fertility and productiveness, by the people of other countries. The skirt bordering on the coast was supposed to be a barren waste, or desert prairie; and the interior cold, sterile, and mountainous. Later historians and travellers represent the level strip lying along the Gulf, as resembling that in the other southern states, in all its principal features; as being well adapted to the culture of sugar and cotton, and remarkably fertile in the vicinity of the numerous creeks and rivers. North of the 32nd