Chap. XIII. 
FIKST SETTLEMENT ON THE ROAD. 
423 
pickled oysters, and champagne, were to be had at a store 
adjoining the fort. On the road farther to the east is Fort 
Inge, which we passed some little distance to the south. 
The Mexicans call this last military station Fortin de la 
Leon a, and the first one Fortin de la Mora. 1 
Besides these forts, the first settlement we met with was 
situated where the road crosses the Sabinal River. It was 
a well-built house, near which another was being built : the 
position is beautiful, and will undoubtedly give rise to a 
considerable place. Noble specimens of the Texan cypress, 
called by the Mexicans sabine, grow by the river : they 
are the first which occur on this road coming from the 
west. The Canon de Uvalde, which has since been bought 
by Victor Considerant as a second home for himself and 
his unsuccessful colony, is situated farther up this river. 
Dhanis, to the east of the Rio Seco, was the first large 
collection of houses we met with. It is a village of emigrants 
from Alsatia and Wiirtemberg. Before we arrived at it I 
met a man on the road, to whom I in vain addressed my- 
self in English, and then in Spanish, and who at last made 
himself known as a German from Alsatia. There is a 
numerous settlement of Alsatians in this western region of 
Texas, and I remarked that they all called themselves 
Germans. 
At the Rio Hondo I was made welcome in a house near 
the road, inhabited by a family from Wiirtemberg. The 
mistress and her sister, this last a genuine " Schwabe- 
madle," pressed me with much kindness to join them at 
table, upon which a dish of "spatzle" was smoking. The 
1 The North Americans constantly 
corrupt this name into Fort Moro, and, 
by the same corruption, change the 
name of the Bio de Mora, a stream which 
falls into the Rio Grande, into " Moro 
Creek." It is a repetition of the cor- 
ruption of a similar name in New- 
Mexico. Mora is Spanish for mulberry- 
tree, and this gives the name to the fort 
and the river. The name has nothing 
to do with the word moro, " moor." 
