134 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, 
ings had aroused great enthusiasm for this scheme of coloni- 
zation, was appointed General Commissioner for the Company 
and came to Texas in May, 1844, to prepare the way for the 
expected immigration. He purchased a grant of land in what 
is now Comal County, and when the first instalment of five 
ships and 150 families arrived at Galveston in November, 
1844, he conducted them to Port Lavaca and then up the 
Guadalupe to its junction with Comal Creek, where he . 
founded the city of Neu Braunfels, named for his old German 
home, and erected his “castle” upon an eminence near by, 
after the old German custom. : 
Mr. Lindheimer, learning of this effort at German coloniza- - 
tion, met the immigrants on their arrival on the coast, was — 
gladly received into the company on account of his local: 
knowledge, and assigned a share in the land-allotment at 
New Braunfels, where he thereafter made his home. There 
is a good description of Lindheimer at this time in Roemer’s 
Srexas” (p. 138): 
“Tn the first days of my sojourn in New Braunfels I formed 
an acquaintance, which was highly prized and very agreeable 
during the whole time I remained there, and to which I now 
look back with special pleasure. 
“At the end of the village and at some distance from the 
last houses stood, half-hidden amid a clump of elms and oaks 
and hard by the brink of Comal Creek, a cabin or small house, 
which, with its enclosed garden in front, afforded by its appear- 
ance and position a true picture of the idyl. As I for the first 
time approached this simple, rustic habitation, I beheld be- 
fore the entrance of the cottage a man busily engaged in 
splitting wood and apparently not unaccustomed to this 
labor. So far as the thick black beard, which covered his 
whole face, permitted it to be seen, he appeared to be a man 
at the beginning of the 40’s. He wore a blue blouse open in 
front, yellow leather breeches and coarse shoes, such as are 
customary with farmers in this country. Beside him lay two 
beautiful brown-spotted bird dogs and fastened to one of the 
neighboring trees was a dark-colored pony. 
“According to the description, the man could only be the 
one for whom I sought and who answered me in the language 
