There is another consideration, which, with most men of the Prairies, operates seriously against their reconciliation to the habits of civilized life. Though they be [Pg221] endowed naturally with the organs of taste and refinement, and though once familiar with the ways and practices of civilized communities, yet a long absence from such society generally obliterates from their minds most of those common laws of social intercourse, which are so necessary to the man of the world. The awkwardness and the _gaucheries_ which ignorance of their details so often involves, are very trying to all men of sensitive temperaments. Consequently, multitudes rush back to the Prairies, merely to escape those criticisms and that ridicule, which they know not how to disarm. It will hardly be a matter of surprise then, when I add, that this passion for Prairie life, how paradoxical soever it may seem, will be very apt to lead me upon the Plains again, to spread my bed with the mustang and the buffalo, under the broad canopy of heaven,--there to seek to maintain undisturbed my confidence in men, by fraternizing with the little prairie dogs and wild colts, and the still wilder Indians--the _unconquered Sabæans_ of the Great American Deserts. FOOTNOTES: [130] Manuel _el Comanche_ was a full Indian, born and bred upon the great prairies. Long after having arrived at the state of manhood, he accompanied some Mexican _Comancheros_ to the frontier village of San Miguel, where he fell in love with a Mexican girl--married her--and has lived in that place, a sober, 'civilized' citizen for the last ten or twelve years--endowed with much more goodness of heart and integrity of purpose than a majority of his Mexican neighbors. He had learned to speak Spanish quite intelligibly, and was therefore an excellent Comanche interpreter: and being familiar with every part of the prairies, he was very serviceable as a guide.--GREGG. [131] Laguna Colorada is in the northeastern part of what is now Quay County, New Mexico, about twelve miles west of Tucumcari Mount. General Hugh McLeod was born in New York in 1814. Graduated at West Point, he resigned from the army to offer his services to the Texans in their struggle for independence. He also commanded in a campaign against the Cherokee in 1839. After the unfortunate Texan-Santa Fé expedition, McLeod was imprisoned in Mexico for about a year, and finally released at the request of the United States government. He served throughout the Mexican War, and joining the Confederate army in 1861 died in Virginia the following year. Colonel Juan Andrés Archuleta, to whom McLeod surrendered, was not the Archuleta who conspired against the United States in 1846-47.--ED.