146 SOURCES OF RED RIVER. 
These severe winds are very prevalent 
upon the great western prairies, though they 
are seldom quite soinclement. At some sea- 
sons, they are about as regular and unceasing 
as the ‘trade winds’ of the ocean. It will 
often blow a gale for days, and even weeks 
together, without slacking for a moment, 
except occasionally at night. It is for this 
reason, as well as on account of the rains, 
that percussion guns are preferable upon 
the Prairies, particularly for those who un- 
derstand their use. The winds are frequently 
so severe as to sweep away both sparks and 
priming from a flint lock, and thus render 
it wholly ineffective. 
The following day we continued our 
march down the border of the Llano Estaca- 
do. Knowing that our Comanche guide was 
about as familiar with all those great plains 
as a landlord with his premises, I began to 
question him, as we travelled along, concern- 
ing the different streams which pierced them 
to the southward. Pointing in that direction, 
he said there passed a water-course, at the 
distance of a hard day’s ride, which he desig- 
nated as a canada or valley, in which there 
was always water to be found at occasional 
places, but that none flowed in its channel 
except during the rainy season. This caiiada 
he described as having its origin in the Llano 
Estacado some fifty or sixty miles east of Rio 
Pecos, and about the same distance south of 
the route we came, and that its direction was 
a little south of east, passing to the southward 
