rivers, brooks and fountains that so often flow by the way, presenting not unfrequently scenes of the most surpassing beauty and loveliness, such as nature rarely exhibits to the admiring gaze of the traveller. But he finds here only a faithful picture of the undulating lands of the middle region of Texas; any other parallel routes between the level lands and the mountains, a distance of more than a hundred miles, would present a new picture of the same enchanting scenery.

We have thus briefly attempted a description of the middle region of Texas, as it appears to the eye of the traveller, but feeble indeed must be our effort, since the subject is one to which neither pen nor pencil can do justice.

Nature, in giving so beautiful an exterior to this highly favored region, has not withheld from it any of her richer gifts. The land, which surpasses all other uncultivated lands in scenes of quiet beauty, to please the longing eyes of civilized men, surpasses them no less in the easy and abundant means it affords for supplying his numerous and daily increasing wants.

The soil over this whole region, with the exception of some tracts, as before remarked, in the neighborhood of the Trinity river, and some few gravelly knolls of unfrequent occurrence in the undulating country near the Colorado, is a dark vegetable mould, slightly mixed with sand and shells, warm and fertile in the highest degree, and of a depth that must render its fertility inexhaustible. This valuable deposite, which may be drawn upon without diminution for countless ages, lies in greater bulk over the bottoms and prairies of the level country, where it is generally from 10 to 20 feet in depth, than upon the rolling prairies of the interior; but here it is seldom less than 4 feet, and is often found of the depth of 6 and even 10 feet.

Those acquainted with the prairies of Illinois and Missouri can best appreciate both the immediate and durable advantages which those in this region afford to the "settler." The same wide range of rich pasturage for domestic cattle, here extends round the whole year. The grass is in general finer, and the sod more easily turned, and sooner productive of full crops; and here cotton, the most profitable of all the products of agriculture, for which these lands are peculiarly adapted, is a never failing crop.

In general, there are more abundant and more convenient supplies of wood and timber, and less necessity for its use. In the annual products of the forest trees a resource which is scarce. ly known in old and populous regions, yet of great value to the early settlers of a new country, this region has greatly the advantage over Illinois and Missouri, in the greater variety and abundance of acorns, nuts, and other kinds of mast, for the subsistence and fattening of swine; a resource which, like the pastur

age for cattle, is here never buried in snow, nor injured by severe frosts

As yet, very little corn has here been used in the fattening of swine. There are planters who make from five to ten tons of excellent pork, entirely upon mast.

Seventy-five bushels of Indian corn, or 1000 lbs. of clean cotton, with ordinary care in the tillage, are considered an average crop per acre, for the lands reduced to cultivation.

Those acquainted with the business of growing these staples, will perceive that the labor of one man might produce 400 bushels of corn, and 5000 lbs. of cotton, besides a supply of vegetables for a small family, which at the price these articles usually sell, would enable him to realize, after reserving sufficient corn for his own use, an income of more than $1000 a year; at the same time without any labor, he may realize 50 per cent. a year for whatever capital he has invested in neat cattle and swine.

Two crops of corn may be grown in a year, and in most seasons a full crop would be obtained at each planting; the second however must be planted in July, and would sometimes fail for want of rains. Planted in the latter part of February, or in all the month of March, indian corn is a sure and never failing crop. Cotton may be planted from February to the first of June, without hazard of a total failure, but a more plentiful crop is secured by early planting. Oats yield a liberal increase in every part of this region; wheat could not be produced upon the level lands, and if it could be, the ease of procuring it from abroad, and the fourfold profit from the same labor directed to the raising of cotton, would exclude it from the list of productions. Upon the rolling lands of the interior, experiments upon a small scale have been made at growing wheat, which for the most part have resulted favorably; but the want of mills for flouring must prevent any considerable attempts at raising this grain for some years to come. The land within 30 or 40 miles of the mountains, where lime stone ledges sometimes form the banks of the streams, is pronounced by those who profess to be skilled in this matter, to be a genuine wheat region. Mill streams are also numerous here, and it is confidently predicted that this, at no distant day, will become granary of Texas.

the

Tobacco and Indigo plants are both indigenous here, and the former has been already cultivated to some extent.

The sugar

culture has been commenced, and there is the best reason for believing that the crop will not be less sure and abundant than it has been found in Louisiana. The manufacture of sugar, however, requires so considerable an investment of capital as to render its introduction into a new country necessarily slow; besides, the great encouragement afforded of late for the growing of cotton,

and the extraordinary success which has attended the culture of that plant here, has very naturally caused an application of almost the whole labor of Texas to its production. It should be understood that the force which is necessary to gather the produce of any given number of acres of cotton, during the season of picking it from the bolls, producing as largely as this plant does in Texas, may, during the season of planting and hoeing, cultivate an equal number of acres of Indian corn or potatoes, and the gathering of the latter crops may be deferred until the cotton picking season is past, so that an application of the whole force of a plantation or a farm, to the production of cotton, does not exclude the cultivation at the same time and by the same force of a sufficient supply of eatables of all kinds, for their own subsistence, and also a surplus for market; the harvesting of the various species of small grains would come between the last hoeing and the first picking of cotton, and that of Indian corn may be done at that interval, or remain, as before remarked, until the cotton picking is over.

Hitherto little has been done here at growing any of the small grains, and as the perpetual supply of growing herbage renders it unnecessary to make hay or to prepare any dry forage for domestic cattle, the months of June and July are with the Texian farmer the leisure months of the year; during the excessive heats of midsummer, when the severest labor is imposed as a sine qua non upon the agriculturist of a more northern latitude, the Texian farmer may repose under the shadow of his live oaks, fanned by the refreshing breeze, which, regular as the rising sun, sweeps over his country, from the gulf to the mountains, during his long summer which extends more than half round the year.

In this region, literally flowing with milk and honey, yielding spontaneously a generous support even for civilized man, and rewarding his moderate labor with an untold abundance of almost all of value that the earth any where can be made to produce; in this region, where spring and summer reign alternate through the year, can man live, and especially can he labor and enjoy that vigorous health which is justly deemed essential to the full enjoyment of life, is the eager inquiry of thousands, whose lot is cast where the earth yields in return for the severest toil a scanty pittance during half the year, and for the other half lies wrapt in a shroud, and locked in the icy embraces of death. It cannot be disguised that the thirtieth degree of north latitude crosses this region nearly centrally, and that therefore the sun must be nearly vertical here for several months in the year. This alone has been deemed sufficient ground for pronouncing a country thus situated, unfriendly to the health and happiness of the human race

in general, and fatal to that of every human being who has happened to be born in a higher latitude.

Having read of or witnessed the excessive heat of Northern Africa, and the malignant diseases generated by the extensive swamps and marshes of other parallel regions, the people of northern latitudes cannot be easily persuaded that there may be other regions near the tropics, so favored by nature as to be exempt from either of these evils, and fitted above all others for the highest enjoyment of human life, and yet there are facts that go far to prove that such is the character of the region here spoken of.

In no part of the earth have the first settlers of a new country suffered less from diseases of any kind. Not a solitary case of the various malignant diseases, which are so common in some other parallel regions, has ever been known to exist here. Among the inhabitants who came here from the middle and northern sections of the United States, many whole families may be found who have resided here from five to ten years, in the enjoyment of uninterrupted health.

No one complains of the excessive heat of summer; its unusual length is at first disagreeable to those who have been accustomed to the vicissitudes of the seasons in a northern climate; this soon wears away, but is most effectually cured by a single return, to experience once more the inconveniences, hardships and sufferings of a northern winter.

The surface and geographical position of this region, along the broad sea that forms its southern boundary, in the eyes of a phi. losopher, would serve as a guaranty against the excessive heats of summer, and on looking further, and finding a country open, as if it had been cultivated for ages, and free from the material which, when acted upon by a summer sun, sends out the exhalations which are known to be the principal cause of the sweeping maladies of summer and autumn, he might promise also a reasonable share of health to its inhabitants.

"The gulf breeze," a periodical wind like the monsoons of the East, and the trade winds of the West Indies, which never fails to be felt here the first moment the atmosphere is so far heated as to be uncomfortable, sweeps with an unobstructed course over this whole region, diffusing a refreshing and invigorating coolness which, in less favored positions, even in higher latitudes, is seldom felt during the heat of summer. Facing this breeze, the traveller may here pursue his journey during a midsummer noonday, without experiencing the slightest inconvenience from a vertical sun.

The wooded bottoms of the level country, when first opened, are not exempt from the intermittents which have been found VOL. I.

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more or less prevalent in like situations, in all latitudes, but they have been less general and less severe here than in most other places where they prevail in any degree; cases are never obstinate, but quickly yield to appropriate remedies.

Good water is found in most places, even in the level country, where wells have been sunk to obtain it; on the rolling lands the numerous gushing fountains have as yet relieved the inhabitants from the necessity of seeking it bene th the surface. No portion of the earth is better provided with navigable waters than this division of Texas, and no where can artficial channels of transportation be made at less expense, so that the immense surplus of agricultural treasures which must be produced here at no distant day, may be rendere l available to the producer at its highest value.

Galveston bay on the east, and Matagorda bay on the west, extend along more than two thirds of its whole coast; the former receives the waters of the Trinity, and the latter of the Colorado, and nearly centrally between them, the Brazos discharges its waters directly into the gulf. The Brazos and Trinity are navigable for steam boats quite to the northern boundary of this division, and the Colorado still further into the interior. The space between these rivers, in their course through this district, no where exceeds sixty miles. Besides these large rivers, there are several less considerable streams, such as the San Jacinto, Bernard, Caney, and La Baca, which may be navigated by small steam boats from 30 to 50 miles into the country. These sec.

ondary streams have nearly their whole course in the level country, and further interior, the country is watered by the numerous tributaries of the three large rivers, some of which are navigable for a short distance. It will be perceived, however, that no part of this division of Texas can be more than 30 miles distant from the navigable waters of one of its large rivers

Most of the settlements in this division are in the immediate neighborhood of the navigable rivers, and the earliest and most considerable are upon the Brazos, upon the borders of which scattering settlements are found from the mouth to the northern boundary of this division. The broad alluvial bottoms of this river, which in some places stretch off to a distance of 10 miles from each bank, and generally elevated above the annual freshets, were eagerly sought for by the first settlers. Much of this was covered with wood, which they had to clear away for culti vation, incredulous that the contiguous prairies which were then ready for the plough, would prove equally productive.

Towns have been laid out at various points upon this river, in few of which some progress has been made in building. Brazoria, standing 30 miles from the mouth by the course of the riv.

a