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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
mentioned who wa~ at the time sick & about to die apparently, & her little daughter being too young to aid in anything 4 or 5 years old. During her stay she was frequently threatened by the Caranka- way Indians. They lived on the ,vest end of the Island o:t' Galveston; their fires were seen there; they several times came to the.beach as if they were about to cross over to Bolivar; l\Irs. Long having no flag, took her red-flannel frock & hoisted it a bloody banner, at the same time fired the cannon at them, whereupon they became alarmed & retired. This she had to repeat as often as danger threatened. ·when her cl1ild born in the fort was five days old, a messenger arrived with a letter from her husband dated from Monterrey and brought by Rafail Gonzales accompanied by a file of men. He remained two or three days & left, taking his course up the Trinity, thence to Labihia & on home to l\Ionterrey. This was about 26 Deer. 1821, arriving on the 26 & leaving on 28th. }\Irs. Long remained in this desolate condition in the fort until the last of January 1822, without ever seeing any any [sic] living being except the hostile Karankaways when one morning her negro girl who had been gathering wood, came running to her mistress announcing that she saw three men approaching :l\Irs. Long, hastily slipping on her shoes went out of the fort in great joy to meet them, when to her surprize the men fled; she pursued, calling on them to stop; but they soon left her out of sight after she had run about 2 miles. On her return back to -the fort, she fortunately found a fishing line & hook; she had not eat any thing for nearly 3 days; The circumstance was singular one. She had about 3 weeks previously been fishing and a large Red-fish having hung himself to the hook drew Mrs. Long in the water; the line was fastened to her wrist; she extricated it and the fish went down the beach, she watching him carrying off the last hook & line she-had. The line she found on her return from the above persuit was buried in the sand one end sticking out; she caught it, & on pull- ing it drew out a large Red-fish; and she doubts not but that it was the very line ~he had lost previously as it wa,s not more than 3 hundred yards below the place where she lost it- This fish was the-first food she had eaten in 3 da-ys. The night her child was born was the coldest ever known in Texas; the Bay was frozen nearly quarter of a mile, so that a person could walk on the ice without cracking it; a circumstance never known before or since. l\Iany fish froze to death; her little daughter Ann gathered them up and put them in an old barrel of brine & they saved them. That same night of birth the wind blew off the top of her house and it snowed in the house and on her bed during the parturition. Her only help, the little negro girl was lying at the same time dangerously ill, out of her senses. So that l\Irs. Long at this critical period was not only destitute of help but had to help her negro, she arose the morning after the birth of her child to gather food for herself, child & negro- When the negro girl had so far recovered as to go about, she & her 1\Iistrcss went to the Bayou, and each holding the end of an old hammock, dragged it like a sein in the Bayou and caught 3 mullets. She then took the mullets as bait and going to the beach caught with her hook & line a Stingaree and then several Red fish; dried them. _ About three or four days, after the appearance <'lf, the three men,
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