MRS. HOUSTOUN'S YACHT VOYAGE TO TEXAS AND NEW ORLEANS.

THE name of HOUSTON Will be as conspicuous in the annals of Texas as the names of RomuLus and NUMA in those of Rome, should Texas maintain an independent existence ; but whether the husband of our fair and lively tourist is any connexion of the conqueror of SANTA ANNA and the President of the Republic, we do not know. Mrs. Housroust, however, is an Englishwoman, Mr. Housroue a sportsman ; and they determined to undertake a yachtvoyage to the New World, the wife in search of health, and the husband of game. Accordingly, about the middle of last September, they started from Blackwell in the schooner Dolphin ; encountered the usual gale " in the Bay of Biscay 0 " ; called at Madeira, Barbadoes, and Jamaica ; twice visited both New Orleans and Galveston the sea-port of Texas ; made a steam-boat trip up the Buffalo Bayou river, to Houston—a city that is to be ; and looked in at Cuba and Bermudas as they returned home. This consummation occurred in May last ; and now in the two volumes before us we have a very animated and pleasant account of what appears to have been a very pleasant excursion. Much of the attraction of the book is undoubtedly to be ascribed to the lady ; but something, we think, to the manner of locomotion. We have often noticed that any peculiarity in the mode of travelling gives a striking peculiarity to the narrative. Mounted on a sorry jade urged to speed by a terrific whip, over tracks that seem impassable till they are passed, and riding every day " for dear life, a traveller with a Tartar courier seems the least likely person to accumulate striking materials for a book : yet all such journies we have ever read are distinguished for animation and rapidity ; even dull and commonplace tourists contrive to do something for the reader when they are fairly in the saddle. The genius of Mr. WILDE is rather inclined to the solid than the aerial; his mind is naturally directed to the useful amid the present, and to tangible facts among remains of the past : yet was his yacht-voyage a lively and agreeable book. And the reason seems to be, that in yachting we direct ourselves only to the agreeable. Public conveyances and a regular land-journey present more variety, but much also that is disagreeable, and much that is monotonous—which in description is a good deal worse than the disagreeable. There is no dread of this in one's own schooner :

"We may roam through this world like a child at a feast,

Who but sips of a sweet and flies off to the rest: And when pleasure begins to grow dull in the East,

We may order our wings and be off to the West."

A calm is scarcely to be dreaded, by the reader; and a storm only gives variety to the description. The tourists, too, have better opportunities of seeing men and things ; the style of "your own yacht" opens doors if not hearts, besides bringing a great many friends to see you on board.

In some sense the character of the subjects in Mrs. Housrones book may be dependent upon her yacht, but the manner in which they are presented is her own. This manner is feminine—with the lightness, the grace, the kindness and the penetration in smaller

things, that belong to woman. Even her faults have an attraction. Her conclusions are sometimes so insufficient, sometimes so obviously contrary to the premises on which she grounds them, that whilst her political, economical, and social views are frequently erroneous, they do not in the least excite that feeling of opposition which error mostly gives rise to ; because they are so transparent they can deceive no one. Mrs. HOUSTOUN left England opposed to slavery : she sees the Negroes laughing over their work on the banks of the Mississippi, and among the sugar-casks at New Orleans ; or she observes the jollity and finery of the domestic slaves, and a half idiot put up to auction grinning at the panegyric of the auctioneer ; and she jumps to the conclusion that slavery is not so bad a thing. The Texans seem to be a goodnatured people as long as they are pleased; and they were very attentive to Mrs. Housrome—a gallant innkeeper on the quay at Galveston knocked up an accommodation-ladder in a night, so that she might walk instead of climb up the side of the pier. Whether these traits of kindness' and the arts of some of the " smart " men of Texas, influenced her judgment, we know not ; but she gives a view of Texan history and of Texan capabilities very different from what is entertained by the world at large. According to her account, Texas is the Promised Land—an earthly Paradise for the emigrant ; yet nearly all her facts contradict her conclusions. The country she has not seen is described in the style of an auctioneer's puff; but what she really did see is the reverse of Paradise. At Galveston, the capital, the houses are built of wood supported on blocks ; a very necessary precaution to guard against floods, the streets being sometimes overflowed, and always muddy whilst she was there,—changed in summer-time, we imagine, into dusty. This mode of building, however, has its advantage's. In the terrific winds that prevail at certain seasons the wooden boxes are only blown over, without much damage. seasons, the gale is passed, the city is "raised" again, and set upon its legs, the efli fices little the worse for the capsize ; which would not be the case with better-built houses, that might offer a bold but vain resistance to the hurricane instead of falling fiat at once like a prudent pugilist, and defying their antagonist to strike them when down. Within a range of sixty or seventy miles, the mainland coast is a flat of marsh and malaria, with their agreeable productions of deathbringing fever or health-destroying ague ; mosquitoes, and every venemous reptile from the ant to the rattlesnake, abound ; and this was the state of the roads on the confines of" the better land," she was not to reach.

INTERIOR COMMUNICATIONS.

The city of Houston was oar head-quarters during our stay up the country; and greatly did we regret that the state of the prairie' owing to the constant and heavy rains, prevented our travelling as far as Washington, which city we had intended to have visited. The scarcity and indifference of the accommodations would not have deterred us from such an undertaking; but, in a country where roads do not exist, it is difficult not to lose one's way. The danger is considerably increased when the trail of previous travellers is obliterated by the rains ; for plumbing the track, the Texan term for tracing a road, is at all times a slow and tedious operation. Between Houston and Washington there is a certain space of two miles, which, when we were in the country, was not traversed in less time than four hours, so deep was the mire.

Even at Galveston, the first city in the country, things do not seem vastly better for a little excursion.

THE GALVESTON DRIVE.

The only " drive " is on the sea-beach : and a most beautiful beach it is—so hard and smooth, with its fine sand, that you scarcely hear your horse's foot fall, as he trots or rather runs along, a light carriage behind him, and the broad prairie spreading far before. Occasionally you are—I was going to say stopped, but I should have been wrong : no one is stopped in this country by anything short of a bowie-knife or a rifle-ball; but your progress is delayed by an interesting bayou, through which you have to wade, or swim, as the case may be. There is neither time nor spare cash to erect bridges : and indeed, were the expense to be incurred, the probability is they would be washed away by the first rain, or by a more than usually high tide. Bridges, then, being out of the question, nothing is left you but to make the best of such means of transport as are within your reach. If you fortunately chance to meet with any person who has lately crossed, you ask, " 'Well, Sir, is it swimming ? " Should the answer be in the affirmative, and you happen to be on horseback, equipped for a journey, with your plunder (luggage) about you, you " up saddle-bags," and boldly plunge into the stream. Should your route lie along the shore, the safest plan is to go a good way out to sea—on, on—till you find yourself well out among the breakers. I confess that at first this struck me as rather an alarming proceeding: but in fact it is much the safest plan ; there being always a bar of sand formed across the mouth of these bayous; and if you can hit that, the depth of water is much lessened.

Nor does there seem much in the social state of Texas to counterbalance the material evils. Mrs. Housroniv admits three drawbacks to British emigration,—a total insecurity of titles to land ; the smartness of the Texans, who when they deal with a Britisher, generally end by completely " shaving " him, that is possessing themselves of all his substance ; and the want of adaptability in the British character to qualify our settlers to meet the new and endless demands upon ingenuity. She says there are a great many lawyers in Texas, and a vast many laws—the Assembly having been industrious enoughin this kind of work : but Mrs. Housroux makes it a ground of panegyric that there is little law among them—which seems to be true enough.

TEXAN MISDEMEANOURS.

At fpresent, however, the Texan people go on remarkably well with their primitive system of administering justice. During the months we remained in Galveston Harbour, there was no single instance of malicious crime—no street fights—no apparent drunkenness or tumult. It is true that on New Year's Day one man was shot ; and doubtless this fact would, to those ignorant of the details, furnish a strong argument in favour of the popular opinion of the prevalence of crime in Texas. The circumstances were as follow. Some children were quarrelling in the street : from words they came to blows ; when their respective parents, who had been drinking together, thought proper to interfere : "I say, Sir, you call your children away, Sir 1"—this gentle remonstrance not being duly attended to, the speaker went forthwith for his rifle, and was in the act of presenting it at the head of his foe, (probably only as a means of intimidation,) when he received his death-wound from the other's pistol. No notice whatever was taken of this misdemeanour.

GROUND FOR SHOOTING AT HOUSTON.

At seven o'clock in the morning we arrived at the pretty town of Houston : it is built on high land, and the banks, which are covered with evergreens, rise abruptly from the river. There are plenty of inns at Houston, such as they are; and we took up our quarters at the "Houston House," a large shambling wooden building, kept by a Captain or Colonel Baldwin, one of the most civil, obliging people I ever saw. We had a sitting-room which was weather-proof, though to keep out the intense cold was impossible. It was said that our landlord was anxious to add to the comforts of his house, but he bad a great many bad debts : it was, he told us, a losing concern altogether ; more went out than came in ; and only that morning having asked a gentleman to pay his bill, the reply was, "If you come to insult me again, Sir, by — II shoot you, Er!"

The discrepancy between her particular facts and her large deductions is Mrs. HOUSTOUN'S weak point. In matters where the conclusion is contained in the single fact presented to her, her judgment is more to be depended upon. But description and sentiment are her forte ; and the eye of the woman and the owner of the yacht often detect characteristic traits which had escaped the lords of the creation ; so that some novelty is imparted even to her accounts of New Orleans. Take a few examples.

AMERICAN MANUFACTURES.

At New Orleans, I saw a gown of printed cotton, which had been purchased at one of the stores; the pattern was pretty, the price very moderate, and the colours indelible. The cheapness of the cotton I thought so remarkable, that I was induced to ask "whence it came?" The reply was, that it was of American manufacture. And so it was—and even 1, unskilled as I am in commercial matters, was struck by the possible consequences of the perfection to which the Americans have brought their manufactures. I had never thought mach on the subject ; but I bad always supposed that all kinds of cotton and woollen goods, besides iron ware, were imported into America from England. To my great surprise, however, I found that nearly everything of this kind that we saw was of native manufacture, and that the prices of them were no higher than in England. It is a positive fact, and certainly an important one, that in the year 1826, one hundred and fifty millions of yards of calico were imported into the United States, and that last year the quantity was reduced to fifteen millions:

CRIMPING AT NEW ORLEANS.

Merchant-ships at New Orleans generally have their cargo stowed by contractors, who are experienced in the business, and who employ Blacks and Irishmen for the purpose. The affair being arranged in this manner, it becomes almost a desideratum with the captains of merchant-vessels to get rid of their hands as soon as possible. They are thus spared the trouble and expense of keeping them during the six weeks or two months that their ships remain in the harbour. When a vessel is ready to sail, the captain has recourse to what is called a crimp, of which there are plenty ; and this individual undertakes to man the ship. At two or three o'clock on the morning of departure, the captain goes into the forecastle, counts over the number of heads attached to so many drunken bodies, and finding the number stipulated for, be pays the agent the promised reward, and goes off as soon as he can.

The ship is, of course, immediately taken in tow by a steam-tug; and she is perhaps well out of the river before her heterogeneous crew are roused from their deep sleep of intoxication. One can fancy the absurdity of the wakingscene. Each man having been, probably, in a state of perfect unconsciousness when taken on board, finds a difficulty in comprehending his situation.

MEN'S DRESS AT NEW ORLEANS.

I remarked how closely those whom I met or passed resembled each other. It is difficult to mistake a Yankee for the inhabitant or native of any other country. They are almost all closely shaven--not a vestige of beard or whiskeris left ; and then their garments are all so precisely the same, I felt I should never be able to distinguish one man from another. I could not at first coinprebend why all the male inhabitants looked so precisely like figures made on the same model : but my lengthened drive through the streets enlightened Outside a great many of the " notion " stores, I saw just such figures hanging up—coat, pantalon a sous pied, in short the whole outward man. There WAS this difference—and be it remarked, it is an essential one—the latter were men of straw. Such cannot be said of the wealthy merchants of New Orleans. The fact is this—there are no working-tailors at New Orleans, and every article of dress comes ready-made from the Northern States. There are merchanttailors in plenty ; and if the traveller in New Orleans is in want of a suit of clothes, he must, if of the masculine sex, betake himself to one of these gentlemen, and he will be forthwith fitted with any thing he may happen to want.

"Pants " are daily announced, as a cargo just arrived "by the New York ": the latter city evidently has the responsibility of setting the fashions to the elegants of the other cities of the Union. These garments being all of the same colour and fashion, fully accounts for the similarity of the appearance of the inhabitants.