CHAP. XXVI.] MOVERS TO TEXAS. 109 



passed between the islands and main land, where the 

 sea was as smooth as a lake. 



On board were many &quot; movers,&quot; going to Texas 

 with their slaves. One of them confessed to me, 

 that he had been eaten out of Alabama by his negroes. 

 He had no idea where he was going, but after set 

 tling his family at Houston, he said he should look 

 out for a square league of good land to be had cheap. 

 Another passenger had, a few weeks before, returned 

 from Texas, much disappointed, and was holding 

 forth in disparagement of the country for its want of 

 wood and water, declaring that none could thrive 

 there unless they came from the prairies of Illinois, 

 and were inured to such privations. &quot; Cotton,&quot; he 

 said, &quot; could only be raised on a few narrow strips of 

 alluvial land near the rivers, and as these were not 

 navigable by steamers, the crop, when raised, could 

 not be carried to a market.&quot; He also comforted the 

 mover with the assurance, &quot; that there were swarms 

 of buffalo flies to torment his horses, and sand flies to 

 sting him and his family.&quot; To this the undismayed 

 emigrant replied, &quot; that when he first settled in 

 Alabama, before the long grass and canes had been 

 eaten down by his cattle, the insect pests were 

 as great as they could be in Texas.&quot; He was, I 

 found, one of those resolute pioneers of the wilder 

 ness, who, after building a log-house, clearing the 

 forest, and improving some hundred acres of wild 

 ground by years of labour, sells the farm and mi 

 grates again to another part of the uncleared forest, 

 repeating this operation three or four times in the 

 course of his life, and, though constantly growing 



