Note III'-10 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: THROUGH TEXAS TO NATCHITOCHES ON THE RED RIVER OF LOUISIANA, JUNE 1ST-JULY 1ST, 1807.

Camp short of Bastrop, a comparatively old place on the Rio Colorado, located at the point where the Spanish trail crossed the river, about 35 m. below Austin, and present seat of the county of the same name. Bastrop is a mere village, pop. about 1,650, but the name was famous in the early annals of Texas, when the Baron Bastrop had his immense estate on the Washita. Dunbar and Hunter, in their well-known Observations, etc., which formed one of the tracts accompanying Jefferson's Message to Congress of Feb. 19th, 1806, inform us that the Baron's great grant of land from the Spanish government began near the Bayou Bartholomew, about 12 leagues above the post on the Washita, and consisted of a square 12 leagues on each side, or over a million French acres (London ed. 1807, p. 83). Bastrop seems to have been a prototype of the modern "cattle barons," or "cattle kings," as they are styled, who generally manage to cover more ground than Queen Dido did when she stretched a bull's-hide around her famous city.