THROUGH TEXAS. EBBE you'd like to go quail-baggin' to-night, young friend?" It was a Texan who spoke, and he turned in his saddle, composing himself as if to allow time for due contemplation of the proposition. "There'll be six of us-four to drive the birds, and two to mind the bags," he added, persuasively. I consulted another friend of recent acquaintance, who, though a stranger like myself in that region, was versed in the ways of Texas. 'We're invited to go quail-bagging tonight. Is it hard work? Have you ever been? Do they bag many? Will you go?" After a little reflection my friend assented, and an hour later a little group was very busily engaged upon the porch of the hotel in properly adjusting a couple of gunny sacks to barrel hoops, the work progressing but slowly, in consequence of the aggressive advice offered by a circle of quail-baggers and other by-standers. The moon came up through a yellow fog, and a sextette, supplied with ample drinkables (not forgetting the bags and candles), left the hotel and filed down the main street, attracting so much attention. from citizens generally as to lead to the conclusion that a quail-bagging expedition was regarded as an event of considerable importance. Three miles of tramping through fields and woodland by a faintly marked track brought us to a stream, where a precarious boat afforded us the means of crossing. Within five minutes' walk beyond lay the chosen field of operations. A halt was made, and considerable debate ensued in a low tone, concerning the bags, and which of the party should hold them. finally decided, very kindly, by the Texans, to allow the two strangers the posts of honor. It was Ten minutes later we were both located, somewhat apart, guarding a pair of bags suspended from tripods made of branches, and each with a candle to attract the expected game, while the forms of the Texans were rapidly disappearing in a direction opposite to our line of approach. My fellow-watcher moved about a little while, and then came to my station. "Seen any quail yet?" said he, some circled the candles, and as we paddled | is the focal attraction, the garden centre quietly across the stream their footsteps were heard approaching. Concealed by a deep shadow upon the opposite shore, we struggled almost vainly with our risibles, while the discomfited practical jokers sought hopelessly for the boat, and finally departed for a ford two miles up stream, using language more emphatic than coherent. We met at breakfast, but not a word of the earth, while the next town is the antipodes of all that is good, great, and prosperous. The native, and the man who came down in '46 as a soldier, remaining in the State through its short-lived era as a republic, and ever since, hold themselves as a sacred aristocracy, and however kindly their sentiments toward later occupants of the soil, they can not refrain from frequent allusion to the peculiarly construct ed laws, such as the "Homestead Act," which make Texas a desirable refuge for those who can not afford to live in a State where creditors can squeeze hapless debtors between the jaws of the legal vise. It is true that on account of such laws the modern population contains a large percentage of men who have tasted the bitterness of debt, of seizure and distraint, and not liking the flavor, have sought the friendly shadow of Texan statutes, and builded anew. The significant initials "G. T. T." (Gone to Texas), inscribed on the bolted door of an involved merchant, are accepted as prima facie evidence that he, too, has bolted. It must not be inferred from this that all who have located within the domain of the Lone Star are to be suspected of financial short-comings. Through the northern and central portions of the State many well-to-do farmers and merchants are found who have migrated from the frost-lands of Minnesota and Wisconsin to a region which, at the worst, knows but a few days of cold and snow in the course of a twelvemonth. Such men have built up a condition of society of which they are justly proud, and jealous lest the sins of the frontier, which have too often made the name of Texas a synonym of lawlessness, be brought to their doors. In the cottage homes of such cities as Dallas, Austin, Houston, and the metropolis of the Western Gulf, Galveston, the chance guest will find scattered about the current literature of the two worlds. Libraries will be found replete with the more erudite forms of publication, and G. T. T. CT.T In the daughters of the family may treat a friend to selections from the newest operatic compositions of the season. point of fashion, the costumes of the ladies conform quite as closely to the edicts of the modistes as do those of their metropolitan sisters. The richly stocked shelves of the merchants in wearing apparel prove that the finest productions of the loom are in quite as active demand here as in the East. Texas may be, for convenience' sake, divided into eastern, central, and western sections. The first, or timbered portion, of a daring, brilliant, and intellectual civ- has the Trinity River as a western bound-by virtue of conquest, and marks the limit ary. This region exceeds the area of the State of New York. Central Texas may be defined as including all of the vast prairie lands from the Trinity to the Colorado, leaving beyond a territory larger than both of the former, and exceeding the size of any four of our ordinary States, as the western portion. The first-named is the oldest in point of Anglo-Saxon civ-peat itself in this instance. ilization. The prairie loam lands are in a condition of evolution or progression, and being the most fecund, the great centres of population which multiplied generations will produce will be located within the boundaries given. Much of the far western lands is arid and uncultivable. The Staked Plains are the most notable example. Western Texas will be invaded in time by the miner; for its mineral wealth, as already revealed, is considerable. The tide of immigration to this section will doubtless reverse the general order of things, and move eastward through Arizona. Railway communication, hereafter spoken of, from the Pacific, will materially contribute to this result. At present the extreme point of eastern encroachment is the city of San Antonio, which is only a city of the Anglo-Saxon The wooded country of Eastern Texas yields a rich variety of useful woods, yellow pine, cypress, red and white oaks, liveoak, hickory, pecan, and cedar predominating. The Trinity, Sabine, Neches, Angelina, San Jacinto, and other rivers afford rafting facilities and water-power at times, although water is an uncertain commodity in the State, and nearly all mills have steam-engines. A new road will soon bisect the lumber districts, springing from Denison, near the Red River, and traversing the State to Sabine Pass, which is sixty miles east of Galveston, and already an important lumbering point. The transcontinental division of the Texas and Pacific, as well as its main line from Marshall westward, affords an outlet for the northern section, while the International and Great Northern road passes settler had to encounter was the scarcity | ly, it offers homes and harvests to milland extreme cost of lumber. It sold as high as sixty and seventy dollars per thousand feet, and was often hauled hundreds of miles by ox teams. The Texan lumberman finds his market toward each of the cardinal points of the compass. The cleared lands in the valleys yield a good quality of cotton, to the extent of a bale of five hundred pounds to the acre. Some rice is grown upon the lowlands bordering the Gulf, as well as the staple known as Sea Island cotton. Seated securely beneath the head-light of a passenger locomotive, one day, the writer and a companion were projected ions who struggle clannishly with the poverty of the crowded cities in the East. This railway west of Longview has been built within five years. Prosperous towns and post stations are met now every few miles, where platforms are stored with cotton bales awaiting shipment. The soil is a wonderfully productive black sandy loam, averaging fourteen hundred pounds of seed cotton, fifteen bushels of wheat, twenty-five bushels of rye, and from forty to sixty bushels of oats to the acre. Occasionally our iron path led through belts of the peculiar woodlands known as the "cross timbers." More than once we |