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Show 414 WESTERN WILDS. carriage- wheel barely marks it, the foot of a horse scarcely dents it ; sloping gently to the water's edge, washed occasionally by the highest tide, and always swept by a gentle wind, it is certainly the most beau-tiful drive on our coast. From 4 P. M. till dark there is the place to see the beauty, wealth and fashion of Galveston. Instead of a winter resort, as I had supposed, this is becoming rather a midsum-mer resort. Old settlers from Virginia and Kentucky tell me they visit those States in the spring or autumn, but make it a point to spend midsummer here, for coolness. From Galveston to Austin the railroad runs through the very heart of Texas, connecting its most important cities ; but less than one- fifth of the country is inclosed, and every county contains immense tracts of fertile, uncultivated land. At Houston more railroads center than at any other point in the State the Galveston Road, the Brazoria Road southward into the county of that name, the San Antonio Road westward to Colorado County, the Houston & Northern Road into Anderson County, and the Texas Central to Red River, with a branch from Hempstead to Austin. Along this last line the country seems very new. " Too much land in Texas " is the popular explanation. In other Western States one finds settlements thick along the eastern boundary, and a rapid falling off near the western border; in Texas the " border " is all over the State. Settlements and farms are no-where coterminous; and until one goes some distance up the slope, north- westward, he finds about as many people in one section as an-other. The pursuits of the original Texans, a minimum of farming to a maximum of hunting and herding, required large open areas between the farms. Now cattle- raising, as an exclusive business, is confined to the far western portion of the State, and all the center and eastern section are calling for immigration. Soon after crossing the Brazos, from Austin County into Washing-ton, I found an old Arizona acquaintance, the prickly cactus, scattered thickly over the prairie a pretty sure indication that we were get-ting into a dryer country. A little further, and we were among the mezquit thickets, which look to the stranger very like old peach or-chards. They grow in patches on the highest and dryest lauds, and are full of thorns as long and sharp as needles. Soon after we enter Travis County, and descend a beautiful and fer-tile slope to the city of Austin, which appears from afar like a scat-tered collection of neat white cottages, embowered in groves and grass- plats. The cityward bluff of the Colorado rises almost perpen-dicular for thirty feet or more from the water's edge, thence a beauti- |
