TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA S. 
373 
cause in your death-struggles you don’t lie conveniently still 
for them to rifle your pockets. 
“ These Nabajos have within a few years past been taught 
some respect for the Americans in the following manner. 
A large party of trappers, with a few Shawnee and Delaware 
Indians, penetrated into the heart of their country, were vic¬ 
torious in all their skirmishes, killed a great many Indians, at 
a loss of only one or two of their own party, and drove off 
many mules, horses, and sheep. This expedition has had a 
good effect upon the Nabajos. They now prefer trading to 
fighting with the Americans. 
“ In the autumn of 1841, also, a trader from Bent’s Fort, on 
the Arkansas, went with a party of thirty-five men into the 
Nabajo country, built a breastwork with his bales of goods, 
and informed the astonished Indians that he had “ come into 
their country to trade or fight, whichever they preferred.” 
The campaign of the old trappers was too fresh in their 
memory to allow hesitation. They chose to trade; and soon 
a brisk business commenced—the savages bartering freely 
their valuable furs and blankets for the gaudy goods of the 
whites; so that, in a couple of days, the latter were on their 
return to the Arkansas. 
“ These Indians are in possession of large flocks of sheep, 
which they have, at different times, taken from the 4 New 
Mexicans. I was informed that they owned in 1841 upwards 
of one hundred thousand head. The fleeces of these animals 
are long, coarse, and heavy, somewhat resembling mohair. 
These they shear, and manufacture into blankets of a texture 
so firm and heavy as to be perfectly impervious to water. 
This fact I have myself tested by suspending one of them at 
its four corners, and pouring in two or three buckets of 
water, which remained there until it all evaporated, and not 
a drop filtered through. I have now in my possession one of 
these blankets which I purchased of the Nabajos soon after I 
entered the Taos Mountains, and which, during two years 5 
encampment in the wilderness, did me most valuable service 
54 
