Very true, paging Jim Bowie.
Ok then, I'll do something similar, eh? As you know, James Bowie/ Santiago Buy, he of the fearsome knife-fighting reputation after the hideous "Sand Bar Fight" in which the "seconds" of two gentlemen having a duel turned into a grisly brawl--knife-and-pistol-fight, but Bowie survived, albeit stabbed repeatedly and shot... When he immigrated to San Antonio de Bexar, he married his business-partner's lovely 19-year old daughter, Maria Ursula de Veramendi. Unfortunately, while he was ill in Natchez on a business trip in 1833, the second world-wide cholera morbus pandemic came to Texas and northern Mexico. It carried off his in-laws and his recent bride.
Turns out, that a Quaker abolitionist named Benjamin Lundy travelled in Texas precisely during 1833. He had some rather fanciful ideas that perhaps freed slaves could be resettled in Texas. During his trip, he is treating himself for cholera with laudanum and camphor, and every place he goes, people importune him to help treat one or another loved one stricken with the cholera... From his account:
page 40: "Learning ... that some wagons are to start in that direction [toward Bexar] in a few days from a point on the Colorado, twenty-five miles distant from this town [San Felipe de Austin], I concluded to proceed to that point to-morrow. There being no house on the way, and the country being a prairie destitute of shade, except for a small distance, I prepared to encamp out for one night, by providing myself with
a pocket pistol and some ammunition. ... When night came on, I laid down on the grass by the road-side, my knapsack serving for a pillow, and my small think cloak for sheets and counterpane, while my hat, my staff, and my pistol smartly charged, lay at arm's length from my person. ...But owing to the attacks of numerous musquitoes, the apprehension of visits from more formidable, though not more ferocious enemies, such as panthers, alligators and rattlesnakes, and the pains of fatigue, resulting from exposure to the hot sun during the day, the very idea, even, of sleep, almost forsook me. ... [p. 43] I took leave of my kind entertainers [6 Indian men, three Indian women, and a Mexican man], went on my way for a few miles, and then laid down to rest under a shady tree. In a short time, two mexicans, armed with swords and guns, passed by. They pointed first to me, then back to the Indians' camp, and hurried on their way. ... As I approached them, one who could speak a little english addressed me with the words: "You no carabina?" (Have you no gun?) Knowing that my pistol would not bear that title, I shook my head. ...[p. 45, going from Gonzalez to Bexar] ... At 2 P.M. we started again, the two armed Mexicans, before named, having joined us, so that our party amounted to seven, all Mexicans, and all strongly armed except myself. ...[p51] ... Not a man ventures into his field, or to a distance of a quarter of a mile to procure wood, without taking his gun along with him. It looks strange to see a man or a boy with a musket on his shoulder, riving an ox-cart.
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