Note III'-17 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: THROUGH TEXAS TO NATCHITOCHES ON THE RED RIVER OF LOUISIANA, JUNE 1ST-JULY 1ST, 1807.

Natches and Neches are obviously the same Indian word, the root of which appears in Natchitoches and various other names. The two have run through the usual range of variation in spelling in the course of writing and printing; but of late years the form Natchez has become fixed as the name of the well-known city on the Mississippi below Vicksburg, while the designation of the river has perhaps acquired stability in the form of Neches. The latter is the principal stream between the Trinity and the Sabine; it runs south approximately parallel with both, and falls into the Gulf through Sabine l., as the Sabine does; in fact, it is collateral with the Sabine, and has been considered a branch of the latter. The Spanish trail crossed it high up. Its own main branch is that eastern one known as Rio Angelina or Angeline r., which Pike crosses on the 24th; and E. of a small branch of the latter was the site of Nacogdoches. It is now an obscure village, pop. about 1,200, seat of the county of its own name, which occupies a space between Angelina and Atoyac rivers; but the place is an old one, which, like all the others which the Spanish trail went through, has a long ethnic, civil, and military history. Neches or Natches r. is to be particularly noted as the ancient seat of a tribe of Indians who, though a mere handful a century ago, left their name as a legacy for all time. Sibley (l. c., p. 43) speaks of "a small river, a branch of the Sabine, called the Naches," on which lived the "Inies, or Tachies (called indifferently by both names)," and adds: "From the latter name the name of the province of Tachus or Taxus is derived," i. e., Texas. Among the permutations of the word and its derivatives not the least singular is the English adjective and noun Texican—a word obviously formed upon the model of Mexican from Mexico. I suppose this is modern, and what may be termed cowboy dialect; I used to hear it constantly when I was in those parts.