422 OLD HUT — TEEEIBLE KECOLLECTIONS. Book II. 
vegetation in the valley surmounted by naked rocks, lofty 
trees shading a brilliant water surface, islands of reeds on 
the flat bed of a rapid stream, are features seldom united 
in one picture. A picture truly of wild and brilliant 
beauty. 
The remains of a hut made with branches, and of a 
fireplace close to it, were visible, where the road passes 
through the lowest part of the valley. Here, some years 
since, when this region was less frequented than it is now, 
some passing travellers — so I was told — once found the 
roasted remains of a human being. Some runaway negroes 
from Texas had concealed themselves here, and urged by 
hunger, had killed one of their companions in his sleep, 
thus seeking to preserve their own lives. They voluntarily 
gave themselves up to justice. 
A few days' journey eastwards from Devil's River 
brings you to the settlements in Texas. The table-land, 
to which you ascend quickly through rocky defiles, gra- 
i dually slopes from thence, and the landscape assumes more 
and more the appearance of a park. With increased irri- 
gation game also increases, and continues to do so after the 
first villages are reached. Our waggon-master in passing, 
and close to the road, shot in one day three stags. Wild 
turkeys are nowhere more abundant in America than in the 
vicinity of the Devil's River, and from thence eastward. 
We came repeatedly upon the track of the cuguar, and in 
one of the first houses we met with, the children were 
playing with three young bears. 
Coming from the west, we met the first settlers on this 
route, in Fort Clarke. This is, or was then, the most re- 
mote military station of the United States on this road. 
In order to give the reader an example of American con- 
trasts I would just state that preserved fruits, anchovies, 
