Only those who have traversed the great plain of Texas can form a true estimate of its illimitable vastness; impressing the mind with sensations similar to those we feel in the contemplation of infinity.
In some sense may the mariner comprehend my meaning. Just as a ship may cross the Atlantic Ocean—and in tracks most frequented by sailing craft—without sighting a single sail, so upon the prairies of South-western Texas, the traveller may journey on for months, amid a solitude that seems eternal!
Even the ocean itself does not give such an impression of endless space. Moving in its midst you perceive no change—no sign to tell you you are progressing. The broad circular surface of azure blue, with the concave hemisphere of a tint but a few shades lighter, are always around and above you, seeming ever the same. You think they are so; and fancy yourself at rest in the centre of a sphere and a circle. You are thus to some extent hindered from having a clear conception of “magnificent distances.”
On the prairie it is different. The “landmarks”—there are such, in the shape of “mottes,” mounds, trees, ridges, and rocks—constantly changing before your view, admonish you that you are passing through space; and this very knowledge imbues you with the idea of vastness.
It is rare for the prairie traveller to contemplate such scenes alone—rarer still upon the plains of South-western Texas. In twos at least—but oftener in companies of ten or a score—go they, whose need it is to tempt the perils of that wilderness claimed by the Comanches as ancestral soil.
For all this, a solitary traveller may at times be encountered: for on the same night that witnessed the tender and stormy scenes in the garden of Casa del Corvo, no less than three such made the crossing of the plain that stretches south-westward from the banks of the Leona River.
Just at the time that Calhoun was making his discontented departure from the jacalé of the Mexican mustanger, the foremost of these nocturnal travellers was clearing the outskirts of the village—going in a direction which, if followed far enough, would conduct him to the Nueces River, or one of its tributary streams.
It is scarcely necessary to say, that he was on horseback. In Texas there are no pedestrians, beyond the precincts of the town or plantation.
The traveller in question bestrode a strong steed; whose tread, at once vigorous and elastic, proclaimed it capable of carrying its rider through a long journey, without danger of breaking down.
Whether such a journey was intended, could not have been told by the bearing of the traveller himself. He was equipped, as any Texan cavalier might have been, for a ten-mile ride—perhaps to his own house. The lateness of the hour forbade the supposition, that he could be going from it. The serapé on his shoulders—somewhat carelessly hanging—might have been only put on to protect them against the dews of the night.