I Was Told That This
Was One Of The "Hardest" Places For A Cowboy, I.E., One Of The
Wickedest, Meaning That When They Visit It, It Is For A "Spree," And
They Get Drunk, And Fights And Murders Follow.
I was pointed to a little
cemetery on a hill, enclosed by a white fence, and was told that it
contained 150 bodies, and that only 50 had died a natural death; the
others had been shot or otherwise murdered in drunken frays and other
ways.
Many strange little histories were told me about these men, but
which I have no time to record here. In some parts of the country where
water was very scarce, there seemed to be no vegetation, and the cattle
seemed to wander solitarily along, a mere heap of hide and bone. At
many stations I had quite a considerable interval for running about,
such as when a wheel caught fire, which happened two or three times, or
some freight had to be taken in, or taken out, etc. When the train again
starts, the conductors shout "All aboard," and there is a general rush.
The next day (December 20th) was again a brilliant day of sunshine; we
see many buzzards, and breakfast at San Antonio. The railway stations
along this country have two roofs, one being two or three feet above the
other, so that air between should keep the building cool. At breakfast,
I read the San Antonio Daily Express, which informed me "severe storms
prevailed everywhere in Great Britain," and my thoughts were naturally
much occupied with the Old Country. The day was sultry, but sunshine is
always a great treat to me, and it was never too hot.
Now we are running into civilization again, and I catch sight of a man
ploughing; he has a pair of mules, and is holding the reins in his
teeth. As we proceed, it is a continuous succession of cotton fields,
cotton fields, cotton fields. We see many bales; these weigh from 475 to
600 lbs. each. At a station called Sequin, I obtained lots of cotton
seeds, and gathered some cotton in the fields as we went along. The
scavengers of this country are Turkey buzzards, which are protected by
law because of their usefulness.
I could not refrain from writing several times in my note-book,
"glorious sunshine." Hitherto we have had mountains continuously in
sight, but now they are out of vision. This being Saturday we see
markets at the towns we go through; at Habwood and Flatonia especially
was this noticeable. The population seemed almost altogether negro. I
observed a negro and his wife, well dressed, riding on horseback in the
old English pillion style; another negro and his wife, and about twelve
children, in a capacious kind of wagon-buggy, and many negroes and
negresses, the latter dressed in white and gay colours, standing at
their pretty verandahed cottages.
We now pass a spot where a train was stopped and the passengers robbed
some time ago, by Jesse and Frank Jeames and the Ford Brothers.
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