PREFACE. 



Lv adding another to the list of works which have al- 

 ready beenpublishedj appearing to bear more or less directly 

 upon the subject matter of these volumes, I am aware that 

 my labors make their appeal to the public under serious 

 disadvantages. Topics which have occupied the pens of 

 Irving and Murray and Hoffman, and more recently, of 

 Kendall, the graphic historiographer of the " Texan Santa 

 Fe Expedition," may fairly be supposed to have been so 

 entirely exhausted, that the entrance of a new writer in 

 the listSj whose name is wholly unknown to the republic 

 of letters, and whose pretensions are so humble as mine, 

 may be looked upon as an act of literary hardihood, for 

 which there was neither occasion nor excuse. In view of 

 this ^ foregone conclusion,' I trust I may be pardoned for 

 prefacing my literary offering with a few words in its justi- 

 fication, — which will afford me an occasion to explain the 

 circumstances that first led to my acquaintance with life 

 upon the Prairies and in Northern Mexico. 



For some months preceding the year 1831, my health 



had been gradually declining under a complication of 



1 



