Overland Tales

by Josephine Clifford

On my way to the ferry, when leaving New Orleans for Texas, I saw something that roused all the "Southern" feeling in me. Two colored policemen were bullying a white drayman, near the Custom-house. I must confess I wanted to jump out, shake them well, take their clubs from them, and throw them into the Mississippi (the clubs, I mean, not the precious "niggers"). What my father would have said, could he have seen it, I don't know; the grass had long grown over his grave, and covered with pitying mantle the scars that disappointments and a hopeless struggle to accomplish purposes, aimed all too high, leave on every heart.

As the cars carried us away from the city, and gave us glimpses of the calm water, and the villas, and orange-groves beyond, there came to me, once more,

"The tender grace of a day that is dead."

It was just a soft, balmy day as this, years ago, when we lay all day long in a bayou, where the water was smooth and clear as a mirror, and the rich grass came down to the water's edge; and through the grove of orange and magnolia, the golden sunlight sifted down on the white walls and slender pillars of the planter's cottage. Stalwart negroes sang their plaintive melodies as they leisurely pursued their occupation, and birds, brighter in plumage than our cold, German fatherland could ever show us, were hovering around the field and fluttering among the growing cotton.

The graceful villa was still there, and the glassy waters still as death; but the villa was deserted, and the rose running wild over magnolia-tree and garden-path; the cotton-field lay waste, and the negro's cabin was empty, while the shrill cry of the gay-feathered birds alone broke the silence that had hopelessly settled on the plantation. Farther on, I saw the cypress-forests and the swamps, and I fancied that the trees had donned their gray-green shrouds of moss because of the deep mourning that had come over the land. The numberless little bayous we crossed were black as night, as though the towering trees and the tangled greenwood, under which they crawled along, had filled them with their bitter tears. But the sun shone so brightly overhead, that I shook off my dark fancies, particularly when my eyes fell on the plump, white neck and rounded cheeks of the lady in the seat before me. I had noticed her at the hotel in New Orleans, where I recognized her at once as a bride, though she had abstained, with singularly good taste, from wearing any of the articles of dress outwardly marking the character. I hoped, secretly, that I might become acquainted with her before the journey ended, for there was something irresistibly charming to me in her pleasant face and unaffected manner. My wish was soon gratified; for the very first alligator that came lazily swimming along in the next bayou so filled her with wonder, that she quickly turned in her seat and called my attention to it. Soon came another alligator, and another; and some distance below was a string of huge turtles, ranged, according to size, on an old log. As something gave way about the engine at this time, we could make comments on the turtle family at our leisure; and when the cars moved on again, we felt as though we had known each other for the last ten years.

I cannot think of a day's travel I have ever enjoyed better than the ride from New Orleans to Brashear. The dry, dusty roads and withered vegetation I had left behind me in California, made the trees and green undergrowth look so much more pleasant to me. The ugly swamp was hidden by the bright, often poisonous, flowers it produces; and though the dilapidated houses and ragged people we saw were not a cheerful relief to the landscape, it was not so gloomy as it would have been under a lowering sky or on a barren plain.

A steamer of the Morgan line, comfortable and pleasant as ever a steamer can be, carried us to Galveston—a place I had pictured to myself as much larger and grander. But the hotel—though my room did happen to look out on the county jail—was well kept; and some of the streets looked like gardens, from the oleander-trees lining them on either side. The trees were in full blossom, and they gave a very pleasant appearance to the houses, in front of which they stood. Some few of these houses looked like a piece of fairyland: nothing could have been built in better taste, nothing could be kept in more perfect order. Too many of them, however, showed the signs of decay and ruin, that speak to us with the mute pathos of nerveless despair from almost every object in the South. We planned a ride on the beach for the next day, which we all enjoyed, in spite of the somewhat fresh breeze that sprung up. The bride was anxious to gather up and carry home a lot of "relics"—a wish the bridegroom endeavored to gratify by hunting up on the strand a dead crab, a piece of ship-timber, and the wreck of a fisherman's net. Discovering that the driver was a German, I held converse with him in his native tongue, which had the pleasing effect of his bringing to light, from under the sand, a lot of pretty shells, which the delighted little bride carried home with her.

The following day we started for Houston. Eight o'clock had been mentioned as the starting hour of the train for that locality, but the landlord seemed to think we were hurrying unnecessarily when we entered the carriage at half-past seven. There was no waiting-room at the starting-point that I could see, and we entered the cars, which stood in a very quiet part of the town (not that there was the least noise or bustle in any part of it), and seemed to serve as sitting and dining-rooms for passengers, who seemed to act generally as if they expected to stay there for the day. But we left Galveston somewhere toward noon, and since we were all good-natured people, and had become pretty well accustomed to the speed of the Southern railroads, we really, in a measure, enjoyed the trip. The people in the cars—many of the women with calico sun-bonnets on their heads, and the men in coarse butternut cloth—reminded me of the Texan emigrants one meets with in New Mexico and Arizona, where they drag their "weary length" along through the sandy plains with the same stolid patience the passengers exhibited here, listlessly counting the heads of cattle that our train picked up at the different stations on the road. The wide, green plains looked pleasant enough, but I wanted to stop at the little badly-built houses, and earnestly advise the inhabitants to plant trees on their homesteads, as the best means of imparting to them the air of "home," which they were all so sadly lacking. The cattle roaming through the country looked gaunt and comfortless—like the people and their habitations.

Night crept on apace; and though I have forgotten (if I ever knew) what the cause of delay happened to be, I know that we did not reach Houston till some five or six hours later than the train was due. I was agreeably surprised to find vehicles at the depot, waiting to carry passengers to the different hotels. Our hotel-carriage was an old omnibus, with every pane of glass broken out; and the opposition hotel was represented by a calash, with the top torn off and the dashboard left out. Still more agreeable was the surprise I met with in the hotel itself—a large, handsome, well-furnished house, giving evidence in every department of what it had been in former days. Before the war, the step of the legislator had resounded in the lofty corridor, and the planter and statesman had met in the wide halls, bringing with them life, and wealth, and social enjoyment to the proud little city. Now, alas! the corridors were cheerless in their desolation, and the grand parlors looked down coldly on the few people gathered there. The proprietor had years ago lived in California; and of this he seemed unreasonably proud, as something that everybody could not accomplish. His wife was a Southern woman, and had not yet learned to look with equanimity upon the undeniable fact that her husband was keeping a hotel. I am sure that she had no reason to deplore the loss of her husband's wealth and slaves on that account; for both she and her husband were people who would have been respected in any part of the world, even if they had not kept hotel.