TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1846-1859 95 any opinions relative to future rewards and punishments that exercise any moral influence upon them. They have nothing like a system of mythology, and neither do they entertain any religious myths of a traditionary or settled character. That impressions of this kind may be easily made upon them, is prob- able; for they are addicted to superstition, and apt to believe any absurdity, natural or preternatural, that does not conflict with their personal or natural vanity. But their minds are too little intent upon the subject of a future state, ever to have formed a connected system of opinions in relation to it. If the doctrine of metempsychosis has ever been presented to them, it has not received a national or general credence: indeed, I doubt if they have any common plan of religious belief, or of a super- natural agency operating on the affairs of this life, beyond the mystic vagaries of witchcraft; and of these, .they do not dis- tinctly believe in anything beyond the potentiality of human means. It may be assumed of them, as to all the practical re- sults of religious sentiment, that "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." The country inhabited by the Comanche, at least that portion of it watered by the Colorado and its tributaries, is of a broken and varied surface--hilly, not mountainous. The valleys are generally small; some of them timbered, principally with the musquit; and some prairie: all of them covered with the best musquit grass, and affording the richest pasture. The soil, still in its virgin state, has the appearance of great fertility, but is, in general, too arid for successful culture, without arti- ficial irrigation. The climate is exceedingly dry, and the pro- tracted heats of the summer exhaust all humidity from the at- mosphere, and from the soil. During the hot months the dews are light, and not very frequent. The margins of the creeks, and of the Colorado, are belted with timber of several varieties found in similar latitudes: the live-oak and pecan are abundant; the first found in beautiful groves on the hills and level uplands. Timber suitable for building is scarce, but stone abounds. No country is better adapted to raising stock of all kinds, and (•specially of horses; and Estremadura cannot excel it for sheep- walks. The principal animals are the migratory buffalo, bear, deer, some antelopes, wolves of several varieties, panthers, and mustangs, or wild horses, which last are obviously of a superior quality to those found on the level or coast prairies; rabbits, of several kinds, pole-cats, and prairie-dogs are abundant: these
Powered by FlippingBook