Three days afterward, General Houston, accompanied by Deaf Smith and ten other men, appeared in Austin, and, without further opposition, removed the state papers.
The history of the hero of the foregoing anecdote was one of the most extraordinary ever known in the West. He made his advent in Texas at an early period, and continued to reside there until his death, which happened some two years ago; but, although he had many warm personal friends, no one could ever ascertain either the land of his birth, or a single gleam of his previous biography. When he was questioned on the subject, he laid his finger on his lip; and if pressed more urgently, his brow writhed, and his dark eye seemed to shoot sparks of livid fire! He could write with astonishing correctness and facility, considering his situation; and, although denied the exquisite pleasure and priceless advantages of the sense of hearing, nature had given him ample compensation, by an eye, quick and far-seeing as an eagle's; and a smell, keen and incredible as that of a raven. He could discover objects moving miles away in the far-off prairie, when others could perceive nothing but earth and sky; and the rangers used to declare that he could catch the scent of a Mexican or Indian at as great a distance as a buzzard could distinguish the odor of a dead carcass.
It was these qualities which fitted him so well for a spy, in which capacity he rendered invaluable services to Houston's army during the war of independence. He always went alone, and generally obtained the information desired. His habits in private life were equally singular. He could never be persuaded to sleep under the roof of a house, or even to use a tent-cloth. Wrapped in his blanket, he loved to lie out in the open air, under the blue canopy of pure ether, and count the stars, or gaze, with a yearning look, at the melancholy moon. When not employed as a spy or guide, he subsisted by hunting, being often absent on solitary excursions for weeks and even months together, in the wilderness. He was a genuine son of nature, a grown up child of the woods and prairie, which he worshiped with a sort of Pagan adoration. Excluded by his infirmities from cordial fellowship with his kind, he made the inanimate things of the earth his friends, and entered, by the heart's own adoption, into brotherhood with the luminaries of heaven! Wherever there was land or water, barren rocks or tangled brakes of wild, waving cane, there was Deaf Smith's home, and there he was happy; but in the streets of great cities, in all the great thoroughfares of men, wherever there was flattery or fawning, base cunning or craven fear, there was Deaf Smith an alien and an exile.
Strange soul! he hath departed on the long journey, away among those high, bright stars, which were his night-lamps; and he hath either solved or ceased to ponder the deep mystery of the magic word, "life." He is dead; therefore let his errors rest in oblivion, and his virtues be remembered with hope.
ESCAPE FROM A SHARK.
While she was lying in the harbor at Havana, it was very hot on board the Royal Consort, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th of July. There was not the slightest movement in the air; the rays of the sun seemed to burn down into the water. Silence took hold of the animated creation. It was too hot to talk, whistle, or sing; to bark, to crow, or to bray. Every thing crept under cover, but Sambo and Cuffee, two fine-looking blacks, who sat sunning themselves on the quay, and thought "him berry pleasant weather," and glistened like a new Bristol bottle.
Sambo and Cuffee, as we have said, were sitting on the quay, enjoying the pleasant sunshine, and making their evening repast of banana, when they heard the plunge into the water by the side of the Royal Consort, and presently saw Brook Watson emerging from the deep, his hands to his eyes to free them from the brine, balancing up and down, spattering the water from his mouth, and then throwing himself forward, hand over hand, as if at length he really felt himself in his element.
"Oh, Massa Bacra!" roared out Sambo, as soon as he could recover from his astonishment enough to speak, "Oh, Senor! he white man neber go to swim! Oh, de tiburon! he berry bad bite, come de shark; he hab berry big mouth; he eatee a Senor all up down!"
Such was the exclamation of Sambo, in the best English he had been able to pick up, in a few years' service, in unlading the American vessels, that came to the Havana. It was intended to apprise the bold but inexperienced stranger, that the waters were filled with sharks, and that it was dangerous to swim in them. The words were scarcely uttered, and, even if they were heard, had not time to produce their effect, when Cuffee responded to the exclamation of his sable colleague, with--