Texas was a Province of Mexico, under Spanish and afterwards Mexican rule, and its many attractions in the early nineteenth century brought a large accession of colonists to the eastern portions from the adjacent parts of the United States. The Americans became so numerous that in 1830 the Mexican Congress prohibited further immigration, and the result was a revolt in 1835, the organization of a Provisional Government, a war which ended in the defeat of the Mexicans in the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, and the final independence of Texas. The people then sought annexation to the United States, but the State was not admitted until 1845, the Mexican War following. Two men of that time were prominent in Texas, Stephen F. Austin, who brought the first large colony from the United States settling on the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, and Sam Houston, who, after being Governor of Tennessee, migrated to Texas, led the revolt, commanded their army, and was made the first President of the independent State. The latter has his name preserved in the active city of Houston on Buffalo Bayou, a tributary of Galveston Bay, and about fifty miles northwest of Galveston. Houston is a busy railway centre, handling large amounts of cotton, sugar and timber, and is rapidly expanding, having sixty thousand people. The Trinity River is the chief affluent of Galveston Bay, flowing down from Northern Texas, and having upon its banks another busy railway centre, Dallas, with fifty thousand people and an extensive trade. About thirty miles above, on Trinity River, is the old Indian frontier post of Fort Worth, now a town of forty thousand population and the headquarters of the cattle-raisers of Northern Texas. For many miles in all directions are the extensive cattle ranges, and to the north and west spreads the "Great Staked Plain," a vast plateau elevated nearly five thousand feet above the sea, covering some fifty thousand square miles, and being surrounded by a bordering escarpment of erosion to the lower levels, much resembling palisades. The stakes driven by the early Spaniards to mark their way are said to have given this plain its name, and it has now become an almost limitless cattle pasturage. When Austin's American colony settled on the Colorado River west of Houston, his name was given the town which was ultimately selected as the State Capital, where there are now twenty thousand people who look out upon the magnificent view of the Colorado Mountains. Here is the Texas State University with seven hundred and fifty students, and one of the finest State Capitols in the country, a splendid red granite structure, which was built by a syndicate in exchange for a grant of three million acres of land, the building occupying seven years in construction and costing $3,500,000. Two miles above the city an enormous dam seventy feet high encloses the waters of Colorado River for the water supply and manufacturing power,