16 
CAMANCHES.—KIOWAS. 
Texas by various routes, and passing the Rio Grande at numerous points in its course, even as 
low down as Matamoros, laid waste the northern States of Mexico. The establishment of a 
chain of military posts enclosing the extreme settlements has seriously interrupted their hith¬ 
erto unmolested progress to the Rio Grande, and they have been compelled to conduct their 
marauding parties to the frontiers of Mexico by routes much farther to the west. The broad 
trail, which seems now in most constant use, crosses the Pecos at the Horse-head crossing, and, 
skirting the eastern base of the Llano Estacado along the line of the extreme western watering- 
places, conducts to the valleys of the upper Brazos and Red rivers, and to the plains of the 
upper Arkansas, by a route which at no point approaches to within two hundred miles of a mil¬ 
itary post. 
The good effect of the chain of military posts in Texas has been thus far exhibited, and it 
would seem the part of wisdom to continue such a line as nearly as possible to the valley of 
the Rio Grande. The present military stations, although continued in a southerly direction to 
the river, leave a district of country unoccupied, at least five hundred miles in breadth, between 
El Paso and the nearest post in Texas. 
This • distance is by far too great to insure any efficient moral effect upon the Indians, whose 
marauding parties now pursue a route traversing this unoccupied region; and it would seem 
that the continuation of the chain of military posts by the most practicable route to the Rio 
Grande should be an object for early consideration. At the headwaters of the Colorado, and 
on the broad trail along the eastern base of the Staked Plain, to which I have referred, we came 
upon an encampment of about fifty Kiowa Indians, returning from a plundering incursion into 
Mexico, with at least a thousand horses. They did not seem to relish our approach—in the 
fear, probably, that we would relieve them of part of their plunder; and immediately after we 
came in sight, they hastily collected their baggage and animals, and took the trail to the north, 
firing the prairies as they went off. 
Heavy clouds of smoke during the day, and a lurid glow in the western sky at night, exhib¬ 
ited to us, for several days, the progress of the fire towards the valley of the Pecos. The only 
Indian who approached us evidently did so to reconnoitre, and was exceedingly anxious to 
know whether we had seen any Camanches, of whose vicinity he seemed to entertain a good 
deal of anxiety. Although the Kiowas live with the Camanches upon friendly terms, it was 
plain that this party was fearful of being compelled at least to disgorge a portion of their 
plunder, in the way of tribute to their more powerful friends. 
The range of the Camanche Indians extends over the plains of the Arkansas from the vicinity 
of Bent’s fort, at the parallel of 38°, to the Gulf of Mexico, and they occupy the country 
along the route of this expedition from the eastern base of the Llano Estacado to about the me¬ 
ridian of longitude 98th. 
The Kiowas .—Of the many small bands and fragments of tribes which are found living with 
the Camanches, by far the most powerful are the Kiowas, who probably do not number more 
than fifteen hundred. Although similar in appearance, and almost identical in manners and 
customs, with the Camanches, they are, doubtless, from their equivocal position, much more 
deceitful and unreliable in their professions, and are absolutely destitute of most of the chiv- 
alric characteristics which distinguish the Camanche brave. 
They hunt the buffalo in company, and parties of the Kiowas always accompany the plunder¬ 
ing expeditions of the Camanches into the States of Mexico. They are divided into several sub¬ 
tribes, under the control of independent chiefs, and portions of them, even during the winter 
months, occupy the valley of the upper Arkansas, and of its tributary, the Purgatory river. 
The “Big Timbers” of the Arkansas, and the bushy shores of the Purgatory, afford them 
fuel and shelter from the storms, and they find an abundant supply of food in the immense 
herds of buffalo which pass the winter along the banks of the Arkansas. In common with all 
the Indians of the plains, they maintain a continual warfare with the Indians of the mount¬ 
ains; and the Utah Indians, who inhabit the fastnesses of the Raton and Sangre de Cristo, 
