Reader! Were you ever in a Texian prairie? Probably not. I have been;and this was how it happened. When a very young man, I found myself onefine morning possessor of a Texas land-scrip—that is to say, acertificate of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, in which it wasstated, that in consideration of the sum of one thousand dollars, dulypaid and delivered by Mr Edward Rivers into the hands of the cashier ofthe aforesaid company, he, the said Edward Rivers, was become entitled toten thousand acres of Texian land, to be selected by himself, or those heshould appoint, under the sole condition of not infringing on the propertyor rights of the holders of previously given certificates.
Ten thousand acres of the finest land in the world, and under a heavencompared to which, our Maryland sky, bright as it is, appears dull andfoggy! It was a tempting bait; too good a one not to be caught at by manyin those times of speculation; and accordingly, our free and enlightenedcitizens bought and sold their millions of Texian acres just as readily asthey did their thousands of towns and villages in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,and Michigan, and their tens of thousands of shares in banks and railways.It was a speculative fever, which has since, we may hope, been in somedegree cured. At any rate, the remedies applied have been tolerably severe.
I had not escaped the contagion, and, having got the land on paper, Ithought I should like to see it in dirty acres; so, in company with afriend who had a similar venture, I embarked at Baltimore on board theCatcher schooner, and, after a three weeks' voyage, arrived in GalvestonBay.
The grassy shores of this bay, into which the river Brazos empties itself,rise so little above the surface of the water, to which they bear a strongresemblance in colour, that it would be difficult to discover them, wereit not for three stunted trees growing on the western extremity of a longlizard-shaped island that stretches nearly sixty miles across the bay, andconceals the mouth of the river. These trees are the only landmark for themariner; and, with their exception, not a single