OLMSTED'S JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS. • Mn. F. L. OLMSTED is known

to the British public by his little book on the "Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in

England," and more lately and widely for his "Journey in the Seaboard Slave States." His present ramble through. Texas, with a trip into Mexico as far as San Fernando, was pro

bably undertaken with some reference to free labour or slavery

as an economical question, and as to how far the climate is fitted for White agriculturists. He was accompanied by his brother, Dr. H. Olmsted, who sought restoration from a pulmonary tendency in a winter saddle journey through the plains and prairies of Texas. The Doctor is also the editor or joint author of the work, having not only arranged and connected his brother's notes, but added matter of his own.

The book has two objects of interest. 1. A consideration of slavery, not with any direct reference to sentiment or even to morality, though on both these points the authors feel and express themselves strongly ; but on the more tangible grounds of cultivation_, crops, moneymaking, good living, and domestic comfort. 2. The nature of the climate as a restorative to patients in the incipient stage of consumption, together with the food and accommodation they are likely to meet with on their journey, which are considerations to an invalid. Besides these two points of interest, the whole country they traversed is very striking, though scarcely attractive in its natural features ; and new, no work that we have met with having gone over the same ground. The book commences with a journey from Baltimore to New Orleans, by rail, coach, and steam, by way of the Ohio and Mississippi. There is information here from the writer's turn for the observation of facts that have a social or economic bearing ; but the real novelty of his journey begins after leaving New Orleans. Instead of taking a steamer for one of the ports of Texas the nearest to their destination, they pursued a land-route rarely used, except by emigrants, traders, and cattle-dealers, while their return-route was even less frequented. At first this led them through Louisiana, and then through what is called Eastern Texas, certainly the worst part of the country. The soil is mostly barren —an interchange of poor woodland for poor pasture and swamps, though land well adapted for the cultivation of cotton is occasionally found, and occupied by a planter with his slaves, to be exhausted and abandoned. The more Eastern return-road, lying through a lower district and nearer to the sea, was still worse. The upper country was frequently intersected by rivers, towards the passage of which art had done little or nothing. In the lower country, these streams with many others were encountered in the flat marsh land which forms the embouchure of all networks of numerous waters or large rivers. To land continually swampy or flooded were added numerous snakes and alligator-holes—in fact, the reality of that nature which melodramatic writers of fiction have exaggerated into the theatrically terrible. Here are some specimens.

"At Beaumont we were told that the tide was up in the Neches bottoms, and that we should find the road 'pretty wet.' It was not, however' intimated that we should meet with any great difficulty. The aspect of things from the ferry-boat, therefore, a little surprised us ; the bank on which we were lauded, some ten feet in width, being the only earth visible above the turbid water. Our directions were, to follow up the course of the stream for about a mile, as far as a certain big tree,' then to bear to the right, and three miles would take us clear of the bottom. At certain spots, where the logs of the corduroy had floated away, we were cautioned to avoid the road, and pick a way for ourselves, wherever we found best footing.

"The forest was dense, and filled with all manner of vines and rank undergrowth; the road was a vague opening, where obstructing trees had been felled, the stumps and rotten trunks remaining. Across actual gunge a track of logs and saplings had been laid, but long ago, now rotten and in broken patches. As far as the eye could reach, muddy water, sent back by a South wind from the Gulf, extended over the vast flat before us, to a depth of from two to six feet, as per immediate personal measurement. * *

"The many pools through which the usual track took us were swarming with venomous water-snakes ; four or five black moccasins often lifting at once their devilish heads above the dirty surface, and wriggling about our horses' heels. Beyond the Sabine, alligator-holes are an additional excitement, the unsuspicious traveller suddenly sinking through the treacherous surface, and sometimes falling a victim, horse and all, to the hideous jaws of the reptile, while overwhelmed by the engulfing mire in which he lurks.

"It was before reaching the Big Woods that alligator-holes were first pointed out to us, with a caution to avoid them. They extend from an aperture' obliquely, under ground to a large cavern, the walls of which are puddled by the motions of the animal ; and, being partly filled with water, form a comfortable amphibious residence. A horseman is liable not only to breaking through near the orifice but to being precipitated into the den itself, where he will find awaiting him a disagreeable mixture of mire and angry jaws."

The social and moral condition of the people of these parts of Texas are much on a par with the nature about them. Tliey are mostly poor Whites, or the lower class of planters, without manners, common education' or any sense of the meanest comforts of life. For a long distance of travel along the lower road, it is remarked that "hardly once did we see a newspaper or a book, other than an almanack or a franked patent-office report." The houses were for the most part poor ; but, poor or pretentious, they were all alike in apertures to allow of a free ventilation, in the absence of the commonest furniture and of all necessary accommodations. As for diet, there were only three things to be had— bacon or pork, corn-bread, and the vilest coffee. This was not from poverty, or from that excessive demand upon the energies which may contribute to render the Western pioneer of settle* A Journey through Texas ; or a Winter of Saddle and Camp Life on the Border Country of the United States and Mexico. By Frederick Law Olmsted, Author of " A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," Re. Re. Published by Low and Son.

ment disregardful of those things which call upon him for care and trouble. Many of the Whites had slaves ; some had numbers; but the differences in the mode of life between comparative wealth and poverty were not much, and those in externals—more human or brute cattle, larger buildings, or greater quantity of land under cultivation.

Matters were not much farther advanced in central Texas among the planters ; in some of the towns they were a little better, at least at the hotels, but not always. It was not till the brothers Olmsted got to the German settlement of Neu Braunfels that they met with common comforts. At Neu Braunfels, and the houses of the Germans in the districts, the brothel's found air-tight walls, and doors that when they would shut could be fastened. They expatiate on the furniture, the prints, the books; occasionally the musical instruments, the social enjoyment when work was done, and other signs of taste and education. The cookery and the subjects of it furnish the grounds of the strongest approbation, perhaps on account of their long confinement to bacon and corn-bread : butter furnishes one of the strongest points of illustrative comparison.

"For supper we had wheat and Indian bread, butter-milk and eggs. At breakfast, besides the same articles, there were also pfanirekucheu—something between a pancake and an omelette eaten with butter and sugar. The sugar was refined, and the butter yellow and sweet. How eon you make such butter ? ' we asked, in astonishment. Oh, ho! it is only the American ladies are too lazy ; they not work enough their butter. Tbey give us fifty cent it pound for our they in San Anton° yes, fifty eent but we want to eat good butter, too.' Such was the fact. At the house of the American herdsman I described in Eastern Texas, who owned probably one hundred cows, there was no milk or butter—it was too much trouble. A friend told me that he had spent a fortnight at the house of an American here who owned five hundred cows without tasting milk or butter' not because the family did netlike these luxuries, but because it teas too much trouble. The German had a cow driven into 0. 11C11 to be milked at daylight. his

wife milked her herself. The American owned a number of Negroes. The German was happy in the possession of freedom, undebilitated by mastership or slaveship. "Or is it, as they say, the climate? and will the German, in ltis turn, after a few years, be debilitated so by it, and labour only under the influence of fear or of excited passion ? I do not believe it."

Mr. Olmsted attributes this want of milk and butter, and the other numerous social evils of Texas, to slavery. He is probably correct, if every circumstance of the slaveowners' life and the lives of their ancestors be taken into account, especially bad or no education, and the difficulty of dealing with brutish and undisciplined Negroes. Some of it is perhaps in the Anglo-Saxon nature, and much in the worship of the "almighty dollar." In Australia the cookery is not more varied than in Texas, and the race perhaps have a turn for talk and. tipple. A German emigrant thus lilts off the Americans in Texas.

" ' And you are glad you left Germany ? ' I asked the young man.

" Oh, yes ; very glad ; is thousand times better here.' " You can have more comfort here ? '

" Oh, no ; not so much. It is hard for a young Man, ho eon have so little pleasure. These American gentlemen, here in Texas, they do not know any pleasure. When they come together sometime, what do they ? They can only sit all round the fire and sped ! Why, then they drink some whisky ; or may be they play cards, or they make great row. They have no pleasure as in Germany.'

" Why, then, do you like it better to be here ? '

" 'Because here I am free. In Germany I cannot say at all how I shall be governed. 'They govern the people with soldiers.' "

Dr. Olmsted recommends the trip to consumptive patients : we think he should have added, if they can bear it. The fare and accommodations among the settlers have been indicated. Under canvass there would be more comfort and better cookery, but the exposure would be greater. Although lying but a few degrees North of the West Indies, ice by night and sleet by day were met with not unfrcquently on the outward journey ; which, however, removed the danger of yellow fever. 'These " Northers " too are common.

"The night was oppressively warns. After breakfast a sudden black cloud rose in the North, and with incredible swiftness and a frightful roar spread over the heavens. The cattle came running headlong for the cover, and we hurried everything under the tent, expecting a deluge of rain. It was only wind—a Norther. An immense change took place at once in the temperature, the thermometer indicating is fall of 15* in fifteen minutes, and the furious wind gave a cutting effect, which was most severe."

The total fall in twenty-four hours was twenty-four degrees. On another occasion, " a thermometer hanging in Neu Braunfels showed a fall of sixty degrees in seven hours." Neither did the physician benefit greatly in his own person ; though allowances are to be made for his mode of travel.

"For ourselves, we had derived less physical advantage from our two thousand miles of active exposure than we had buoyantly anticipated. The abominable diet, and the fatigue, sometimes relatively too severe, had served to null the fresh benefits of pure air and stimulating travel. Lungs, oppressed at home, played perhaps a little more freely ; but the frame had not absorbed the sanguine sturdiness that should enable it to resist subtile tendencies and get itself rudely superior to circumstances."

In this work, as in most American books, the descriptions, of incidents especially, are frequently over-detailed, and illustrative facts of a similar character are perhaps needlessly repeated. This repetition, however, may be well overlooked, because the facts are frequently so curious in themselves, and so important for the conclusions they contain—that slavery (the slave himself being altogether put out of view) is alike mischievous to the character, the comfort, and the wealth of the slaveovrner, while it is a oomph* check even to the material progress of the community. When the great length of the book is considered, the tit, into Mexico might have been omitted: it, however, leads to the ,„,pinion that annexation by the slaveowners of the United States would be useless, on account of the nature of the country. It is not well adapted to slave cultivation, but exceedingly well fitted to facilitate the escape of slaves.