A later reminiscence attaches France to Texas, for it was there that General Lallemand attempted in 1817 to found, under the name of _Champ d'Asyle_, a colony of French refugees, the unhappy relics of the invincible armies of the first empire. This colony, situated about ten leagues from Galveston, was utterly destroyed by the orders of the Viceroy Apodaca, by virtue of the despotic system, constantly followed by the Spaniards of the New World, of not allowing strangers, under any pretext, to establish themselves on any point of their territory. We shall be forgiven these prosy details when our readers reflect that this country, scarce twenty years free, with a superficies of one hundred thousand acres and more, and inhabited by two hundred thousand persons at the most, has, however, entered on an era of prosperity and progress, which must inevitably arouse the attention of European Governments, and the sympathies of intelligent men of all nations. At the period when the events occurred which we have undertaken to narrate, that is to say in the later half of 1829, Texas still belonged to Mexico, but its glorious revolution had begun, it was struggling valiantly to escape from the disgraceful yoke of the central government, and proclaim its independence. Before, however, we continue our story, we must explain how it was that Tranquil, the Canadian hunter, and Quoniam, the Negro, who was indebted to him for liberty, whom we left on the Upper Missouri leading the free life of wood-rangers, found themselves established, as it were, in Texas, and how the hunter had a daughter, or, at any rate, called his daughter, the lovely fair-haired girl we have presented to the reader under the name of Carmela. About twelve years before the day we visit the Venta del Potrero, Tranquil arrived at the same hostelry, accompanied by two comrades, and a child of five to six years of age, with blue eyes, ruddy lips, and golden hair, who was no other than Carmela; as for his comrades, one was Quoniam, the other an Indian half-breed, who answered to the name of Lanzi. The sun was just about setting when the little party halted in front of the venta. The host, but little accustomed in this desolate country, close to the Indian border, to see travellers, and especially at so late an hour, had already closed and barred his house, and was himself getting ready for bed, when the unexpected arrival of our friends forced him to alter his arrangements for the night. It was, however, only with marked repugnance, and on the repeated assurances the travellers made him that he had nought to fear from them, that he at length decided to open his door, and admit them to his house. Once that he had resolved to receive them, the host was as he should be to his guests, that is to say, polite and attentive, as far as that can enter into the character of a Mexican landlord, a race, be it noted in a parenthesis, the least hospitable in existence.