There were no horses in America before the discovery of Columbus. The Texas mustangs were the product of the cavalry horses brought from Europe to Mexico by Cortez in 1519. They had multiplied, almost unmolested, during the three hundred years they had roamed prairie and forest. These mustangs were always fat, and when nothing better was to be had they made tolerable food. There were, of course, no stores where anything could be bought; the men went dressed in buckskin; the women in coarse cloth woven by themselves. There was no mail, news from the outer world—from the dear ones left behind in the far-away “states”—came only when a chance traveler arrived with an old newspaper or possibly a letter in his saddle bags. There was neither school nor church. But in those rude cabins dwelt honesty, high courage, and unbounded hospitality. In business every man’s “word was as good as his bond.” There were no locks on the doors, robbery being unknown. Everything, even to life itself, was ever at the service of friend and neighbor. The nameless traveler, welcomed without question, shared, as long as he chose to stay, the fireside and table of his host. Of such stuff were the first Texans. Austin returned from Mexico in July, 1823. He was welcomed with affectionate joy by his colonists. He was accompanied by his father’s friend, the Baron de Bastrop, commissioned by the government to assist him in laying off the town, surveying lands, and issuing titles. The town was named by Señor de la Garza, who had succeeded Martinez as governor of Texas. He called it San Felipe (Fa-lee′pā) de Austin, in honor at the same time of his own patron saint and of its founder. Other towns soon sprung up over the province; for grants for other settlements had been sought and obtained from the government. Austin got permission in 1825 to bring out five hundred additional families. Immigrants flocked in, eager to share in this cheap and fruitful paradise. The names _Columbia_, _Brazoria_, _Gonzales_, _Victoria_, _San Augustine_, and other towns and settlements, began to be familiar to the tongue. Some Irish colonists founded on the Nueces River, near its mouth, a town which they named St. Patrick in remembrance of the patron saint of Ireland. To the Spanish-speaking people of Texas it soon became known as San Patricio, and so it is still called. A large tract of land was granted to Hayden Edwards, a Kentuckian, in the neighborhood of Nacogdoches, the old gateway of Texas history. But things did not go as smoothly there as in Austin’s colony. It was too near the Neutral Ground, which continued to harbor outlaws and adventurers of all kinds.