26 LETTERS FKOM TEXAS. 



wife was slatternly, deprived of society, and rendered unhappy by 

 memories of better times and more congenial associations. Man 

 lives as a herdsman mainly on horseback, in the open air, often 

 meeting acquaintances or strangers ; Woman, being confined to her 

 small, rough cabin, found therein no solace, no comfort, but in her 

 children. The partnership was not an equal one ; there was no 

 similarity in its conditions. There are proud and happy wives in 

 Texas as elsewhere, but the rancher's life has not tended to make 

 them so. I am glad that I can see to the end of it. And I trust 

 that the ranchemen's wives are even gladder than I am. 



While Slavery lasted in Texas, any decided change was hardly 

 possible. The tillere of her soil were slaves. White men almost 

 uniformly refused to " make niggers of themselves" by plowing and 

 hoeing ; but they did not hesitate to mount a horse and gallop after 

 a herd of Cattle. Boys early learned to lasso a steer or colt ; they 

 liked the herdsman's life, with its excitements and adventures ; it was 

 the next thing to a bviffalo-hunt. Land had no value; products, 

 unless near navigable water, next to none. Many a man has been 

 unable to sell his Corn at 25 cents per bushel in one County, when 

 no better Corn was wanted at six times that price in another ; im- 

 passable streams and unfathomable roads separating them. So the 

 owner of five thousand cows was often for weeks without flour 

 bread, and veiy rarely had either Cheese, Butter, or Milk ; " hog 

 and hominy " were his staples for diet ; Fruit he seldom tasted ; 

 Tobacco and Whisky were his only luxuries. 



So much for the Past. I will speak of the Future in my next. 



H. G. 



TEXAS... THE FUTURE OF THE STATE... ITS RAILROADS. 



[EDITOKIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE TRIBUNE.] 



CoLTiMBUS, Colorado Co., Texas, May 2G. — Before I dilate on the 

 bright fut\ire now opening before this State, let me indicate some 

 of the drawbacks which have hitherto retarded her material and 

 still more her intellectual and moral progress. 



JBad water is qxiite often the accompaniment of very good land ; 

 and South- Eastern Texas has little that is good. I have now travel- 

 ed over nearly every completed mile of her railroads without having 



