The European traveller who visits for the first time Texas, and all the coasts of Southern America generally, experiences a feeling of indefinable sorrow at the sight of these gloomy and sinister shores, which have witnessed so many accidents, and against which the dark waves of the Pacific break with mysterious murmurs. All, in fact, disposes to reverie in these poetic countries: the sky, which resembles a plate of red-hot iron; the lofty denuded cliffs, whose capricious outline looks as if it had been cut out by some artistic giant of past ages, and bearing at times on their proud crests the still imposing ruins of an old palace of the Incas, or a teocali, whose massive walls are lost in the clouds--the ancient lurking places of those ferocious priests of the Sun, who made all tremble around them, and raised their bloody titles both afloat and ashore. Before the conquest, at the time when the descendants of Quetzalcoatl, or the Serpent covered with feathers, peacefully reigned in these countries, the thick walls of the teocalis stifled many a groan, concealed and authorised many a crime. Of all the stories told us in our last journey through Texas, about these mournful abodes scattered over the country, we will only relate one, which has reference to the narrative we have undertaken to tell. It was a short while after the daring expedition, during which Columbus, while seeking a new road to India, had found America again; the fever of discovery had affected every imagination; each, with his eyes fixed on the New World, which had sprung up as if by magic, rushed toward these unknown regions with all that feverish activity we have seen suddenly rekindled with reference to the Californian placers. Among the adventurers who went to try their fortunes, some were only urged by the hope of making discoveries, while others, on the contrary, only obeyed the thirst for gold, and renewed, on another stage, the fabulous exploits of the Scandinavians--those bold kings of the sea, whose life was a continued combat. Among these men was one who had made, with the unfortunate De La Salle, that unlucky expedition, during which he crossed over the whole of Texas. This adventurer, however, Don Estevan de Sourdis by name, caring little for the unprofitable adventures the brave Frenchman undertook, secretly quitted his Chief with the vessel he commanded, and sailed quietly along the coasts of the new land so recently discovered.