Chap. III. A TANKO INDIAN. 453 
River, and the roasted human flesh, and I felt no desire 
to make any further search after the inhabitant of this 
retreat. 
At Fort Inge our camp was visited by an old 
Tanko Indian (Tancoway), who met several of our 
people in rather ill humour, and did not meet, there- 
fore, with a very friendly reception. On his giving 
the usual assurances of amity, one of our men re- 
plied, " You talk now of friendship, but if one of us fell 
into your power you would cut his throat." The man 
understood that our friend wanted to cut his throat, and 
looked enquiringly around the circle, to learn whether he 
had to expect this fate from all those present. When his 
eyes met mine my look probably assured him that I at 
least did not desire his blood ; he stretched out his hand 
to me, and embraced me, exclaiming repeatedly, and in an 
expressive manner, " Manito 1 " no doubt a corruption of 
the Spanish " Hermanito" i. e. " dear brother." He ap- 
peared now to be quieted, but he soon quitted our in- 
hospitable camp. On our arrival the next day at a village 
of the Tankos, on the Nueces, we found it deserted. The 
fires were still burning, and it was evident that our appear- 
ance had driven the inhabitants away. Whether the un- 
friendly treatment and misunderstanding of the old man 
had occasioned their flight, or the jokes of some of our 
people that they would visit the Tanko ladies, I know not. 
On our way from the Nueces to Turkey Creek we en- 
countered a violent north wind of a remarkably warm tem- 
perature. A warm norther seems a contradiction ; but the 
fact is easily explained by the supposition that the wind 
had made a circle, either in a vertical or in a horizontal 
direction, and that what met us as a wind from the north, 
had originally come from the south. 
