12 
INDIANOLA 
ing tliem draw logs about for a few days, when 
they became docile, and could be harnessed to the 
wagons with safety. While this was going on, the 
mechanics were employed in their various duties. 
The blacksmiths and carpenters in making many 
small fixtures to the wagons; amongst other things, 
all had to be provided with feed-troughs, not a single 
one of these necessary appendages being furnished 
with them. All the harness and collars had to be re- 
duced, to adapt them to our Mexican mules, which 
were much smaller than the mules of Kentucky and 
Missouri, used at the north, and for the transportation 
of merchandise for the Santa Fe and New Mexican trade. 
La Salle, the place opposite which we came to an- 
chor in entering Matagorda Bay, is so named in memo- 
ry of one of the most remarkable of the early explo- 
rers of the North American continent. This distin- 
guished Frenchman, with the ardent zeal which charac- 
terized his countrymen in their attempts to penetrate 
to the very heart of the continent, had passed the great 
chain of the northern lakes, pushed his discoveries to 
the head waters of the Mississippi, and traced its course 
to the gulf, before the first English colonist had es- 
tablished himself on the Atlantic coast. Coasting along 
the shores of the gulf in search of a spot whereon he 
might establish a colony, he landed, against his will, at 
or near the spot which now bears his name, where he 
remained nearly a year with a little band of adventu- 
rers, facing all the dangers and undergoing all the hard- 
ships to which they could be exposed in a country sur- 
rounded by hostile Indians. In his attempt to extricate 
his party, he was murdered by one of them. 
