4 CONFUSED ACCOUNT OF RED RIVER. 



Missouri, from Santa Fe, and among others the brother of Captain 

 Shreeves, who gives information of a large and frequented road, which 

 runs nearly due east from that place, and strikes one of the branches of 

 the Canadian ; that, at a considerable distance south of this point, in the 

 high plain, is the principal source of Red river. 



"His account confirms an opinion we had previously formed, 

 namely: that the branch of the Canadian explored by Major Long's 

 party in August, 1820, has its sources near those of some stream which 

 descends towards the west into the Rio del Norte, and consequently that 

 some other region must contain the head of Red river." He continues : 



"From a careful comparison of all the information we have been able 

 to collect, we are satisfied that the stream on which we encamped on 

 the 31st of August is the Rio Raijo of Humboldt, long mistaken for 

 the sources of Red river of Natchitoches. In a region of red clay and 

 sand, where alfthe streams become nearly the color of arterial blood, 

 it is not surprising that several rivers should have received the same 

 name; nor is it surprising that so accurate a topographer as the Baron 

 Humboldt, having learned that a Red river rises forty or fifty miles east 

 of Santa Fe and runs to the east, should conjecture it might be the source 

 of Red river of Natchitoches. 



"This conjecture (for it is no more) we believed to have been adopted 

 by our geographers, who have with much confidence made their deline- 

 ations and their accounts to correspond with it." 



Hence it will be seen that up to this time there is no record of any 

 traveller having reached the sources of Red river, and that the country 

 upon the head-waters of that stream has heretofore been unexplored. 

 The Mexicans and Indians on the borders of Mexico are in the habit of 

 calling any river, the waters of which have a red appearance, "Rio 

 Colorado," or Red river, and they have applied this name to the Cana- 

 dian in common with several others ; and as many of the prairie Indians 

 often visit the Mexicans, and some even speak the Spanish language, it 

 is a natural consequence that they should adopt the same nomenclature 

 for rivers, places, &c. Thus, if a traveller in New Mexico were to in- 

 quire for the head of Red river, he would most undoubtedly be directed 

 to the Canadian, and the same would also be the case in the adjacent 

 Indian country. These facts will account for the mistake into which 

 Baron Humboldt was led, and it will also account for the error into 

 which Colonel Long and Lieut. Pike have fallen in regard to the sources 

 of the stream which we call Red river. 



Dr. Gregg, in his "Commerce of the Prairies," tells us that on his 

 way down the south bank of the Canadian his Comanche guide, Manuel, 



