SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 135 



the great Cass champion, in a run that was to settle the 

 fate of that renowned hero, ride stern foremost down 

 into the dark recess of the open cellar-way of the 'Trav- 

 eler's Home.' 



There let him and his hero rest ; and while we dreamed 

 away the balance of the night, the 'better half of poor 

 Bill raised a force, and, by hard digging, made out to 

 raise him and his horse to daylight before I left the next 

 morning. 



But as Bill told me, he honestly believed he had seen 

 the devil, and that it was a warning to him not to ride 

 another Cass race in the dark, and that he would most 

 truly vote for Old Zack. I quieted my conscience by 

 thinking that 'ignorance is bliss,' and this is one vote 

 saved, and therefore, left him a believing convert to a 

 better faith, in which he will probably long continue, not- 

 withstanding the publication of this veritable history. 

 Newspapers, be it understood, are as a sealed book to that 

 portion of our brothers of the great political family of 

 this 'highly enlightened land,' for which our fathers 

 fought and bled, and Bill Smithers rode the midnight 

 race, and I wrote the history thereof. 



Agricultural Tour South and West. — No. 3. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 8:90-92; Mar., 1849'] 



[December 8, 1848] 



I THINK in my last communication, I parted with my 

 readers at Dr. Philips'. The day I left there, I had a 

 conversation with Mr. Watson,^ a neighbor of the Doc- 

 tor's, about the loss of stock on pea fields. Mr. W. has 

 lost fourteen head of cattle this fall, (mostly fat heifers,) 

 among which are two working oxen and one beeve. 



'Reprinted in part in Ohio Cultivator, Columbus, Ohio, 5:101-2 

 (April 1, 1849). 



^ James W. Watson, born in Port Gibson, Mississippi, 1824. Grad- 

 uate of Princeton, 1844. Commenced planting in the neighborhood 

 of Bethel, in Claiborne County, Mississippi. Owned an extensive 

 library. Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, 2:586. 



