‘You need not thank me,’ said he, in reply to Ned’s warm acknowledgments. ‘The best return that I can have will be, to find you always in word and deed such that I may be proud of you; and hereafter, when I see others looking up to you, and hear you spoken of as one whose character is above all reproach, that I may say to myself: ‘Thank God, I helped to make him what he is.’ This is all that I want, Ned; and your future life will be your best acknowledgment, or will prove your heartless ingratitude. Let neither success nor failure tempt you to swerve from what your own heart tells you to be right and fair. Turn out as your schemes may, never forget to keep your motives pure; and believe me, that come what will, you’ll find an easy conscience a great comforter in the hour of trial. Your father was one of my oldest friends; a noble upright man he was; and it would have wounded him deeply that any one belonging to him should have been otherwise; and it would give me many a heavy hour if his only child did not turn out all that I expect him to be. I am right glad to learn that you are getting bravely on in your business; and as for this matter with Kate,’ said he, pausing, for they had come to where their routes separated, ‘it can easily be made right. I love her as my own child; and I would not have her thwarted for the world. I’ll see Jacob again to-morrow; and have no doubt that he will give his consent at last. Perhaps it would be better for you not to present yourself at his house too soon. Work your way back to where you were, cautiously, and say nothing to him about marrying Kate, until you and he are on your old terms of good fellowship. It wont be long, depend on it: and now, recollect what I told you a few moments ago. If you want any assistance in your business, or if a loan of a thousand or two dollars, or a good word from me, will push you on, you shall have it. Good night!’ And Harson had not gone a hundred yards, before he was whistling so loud that he might have been heard half a mile.
‘God help you, Harry!’ muttered Somers, looking after the stout, burly figure of his friend; ‘God bless your warm old heart! What a glorious world this would be, if there were more in it like you!’
LITERARY NOTICES.
Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition: Comprising a description of a Tour through Texas, and across the great South-western prairies, the Camanche and Caygüa Hunting-grounds, with an account of the suffering from want of food, losses from hostile Indians, and final capture of the Texans, and their march as prisoners to the city of Mexico. By George Wilkins Kendall. In two volumes. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
This is by far the most racy and interesting book of travels we have read for a long time. Every body is of course acquainted with the general history of the expedition; its romantic projects, its speedy defeat, and the calamitous sufferings which its members were forced to undergo. But ill-fated as it was, the rich and most amusing personal incident with which every step of its progress appears from this book to have been crowded, commends it most forcibly to our admiration. We cannot say that we should have been quite willing to accompany our friend Kendall through all the severities of his adventurous journey; nor can we refuse our sincere sympathy with him and his brave companions, in the terrible scenes through which they passed. But he has told all these adventures in so pleasing and interesting a manner, and has so sprinkled through the narrative sketches of personal incident, abounding with wit and humor, that the volumes must be read with a delight as keen as the sufferings recorded were real and severe. Mr. Kendall writes in a style admirably adapted to the narration of just such a history as he has given; it is simple and clear, aiming at nothing more than to give a plain statement of actual occurrences; and yet it is remarkably spirited, and distinguished at times by great felicity of expression. He is a capital traveller, never shrinking from any danger or difficulty, close in his observation, and gifted with a love of fun, and a ‘touch’ of humor which no extremity, however terrible or threatening, can wholly repress. The reader of the work must be continually surprised at the repeated instances which occur where this disposition is strongly manifested; and while it must have relieved to a considerable degree the sufferings which he was forced to undergo, it gives to the book increased and attractive interest. We should be glad to follow Mr. Kendall through his journey, and present copious extracts from the account he has given of its progress and incidents; but this our limits will not allow; and we can only glance at the general history of the expedition, and copy a tithe of the passages we have marked in reading the two excellent volumes he has given us.
At the opening of his book, Mr. Kendall gives us a statement of the motives which induced him to join the expedition, and an introduction to the persons of whom it was composed. His purposes, of course, were entirely pacific, growing out of a desire to recruit his health, a wish to procure new materials for writing, and a love of adventure in general. He took care to provide himself with passports from the Mexican authorities, which he naturally supposed would protect him, as an American citizen, from molestation and injury. The first part of their journey led them over the vast prairies and hunting grounds of Western Texas; and their adventurous progress is admirably sketched in his flowing narrative. Their exploits in hunting buffalo; their frights from, and encounters with, the wild Indians; their serenades from the wolves, and all the incidents by which a journey of so large a troop over ground before almost untrodden, would naturally be distinguished, are most graphically and humorously described. We copy the following interesting description of a stampede, or flight of terror, with which great numbers of horses or oxen are sometimes seized, with a humorous sketch of the exploits in this line, of one of the nags of the expedition:
‘Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the scene when a large cavallada, or drove of horses, takes a ‘scare.’ Old, weather-beaten, time-worn, and broken-down steeds—horses that have nearly given out from hard work and old age—will at once be transformed into wild and prancing colts. When first seized with that indescribable terror which induces them to fly, they seem to have been suddenly endowed with all the attributes of their original wild nature. With heads erect, tails and manes streaming in air, eyes lit up and darting beams of fright, old and jaded hacks will be seen prancing and careering about with all the buoyancy of action which characterizes the antics of young colts; then some one of the drove, more frightened than the rest, will dash off in a straight line, the rest scampering after him, and apparently gaining fresh fears at every jump. The throng will then sweep along the plain with a noise which may be likened to something between a tornado and an earthquake, and as well might feeble man attempt to arrest either of the latter.
‘Were the earth rending and cleaving beneath their feet, horses, when under the terryfying influence of a stampede, could not bound away with greater velocity or more majestic beauty of movement. I have seen many an interesting race, but never any thing half so exciting as the flight of a drove of frightened horses. The spectator, who may possibly have a nag among them which he has been unable to get into a canter by dint of spur and whip, sees his property fairly flying away at a pace that a thorough-bred racer might envy. Better ‘time,’ to all appearance, he has never seen made, and were it not that he himself is as much astounded as the horses, there might be very pretty betting upon the race.
‘On one occasion, when a closely-hobbled horse was rushing madly along the prairie under the influence of fright, his owner coolly remarked: ‘I wish I could make that critter go as fast on my own account without hobbles, as he can on his own with them—I’d gamble on him sure.’ And so it is. No simile can give the reader a fair conception of the grandeur of the spectacle, and the most graphic arrangement of words must fall far short in describing the startling and imposing effect of a regular stampede!