The people en masse can have a living, and that plentifully too, of animal food, both of beef and pork, of venison and bear meat, besides a variety of fish and fowl, upon easier terms at present, especially the wild game, than any other people, in any other district of North America; which must continue to be the case, for one of the best reasons in the world—at least in Texas: as the wild animals decrease, the domesticated ones will increase!
And, as they have not commenced, except in a few cases (comparatively speaking) upon the border lands of the Gulf, to export corn, they have by just dropping the seed and afterwards stowing away the increase, more bread stuff than they well know sometimes what to do with, it being out of the question to feed their hogs on it, except they were to raise them on such food altogether, which would be a pity, while they have so much mast in the woods, and so many roots in the prairies.
And, as their milch cattle increase in numbers, and that very frequently too faster than they can attend to their milking, they have more, as to family use, much more milk, than they know how to dispose of, except they are well stocked with farrow sows, or have around them pet mustang colts.
With these three main stays of a farmer's life, come, by very little more exertion than just the picking and gathering in, those condiments and relishes, which not only garnish the table, but replenish the appetite, from a source of such plentiful variegation, as the gardens and the fields, the woods and the waters, of a Texas country!
INKLINGS OF ADVENTURE.
Inklings of Adventure. By the Author of Pencillings by the Way. New York: Saunders and Otley.
These volumes are inscribed “to the distinguished American orator and statesman, Edward Everett,” and are introduced by a Preface over the signature of N. P. Willis, in which “the papers which are to follow,” are said to record some passages in the life of a certain Philip Slingsby. Mr. W. assures us that although his name stands in the title-page of the book as its author, (which, upon reference, we find not to be the case) he can only take to himself that share of the praise or blame which may attach [be attached] to it as a literary composition. Most assuredly (setting all this badinage aside, which may possibly have a fuller meaning than lies upon its surface) we can see no reason for praising or blaming Mr. Willis except in his character of literateur, for any thing to be found in the volumes before us. We cannot sufficiently express our disgust at that unscrupulous indelicacy which is in the habit of deciding upon the literary merits of this gentleman by a reference to his private character and manners, and feel, indeed, a species of indignation in the thought, that when we propose to say a few words, without any such reference, about the present “Inklings of Adventure,” we are proposing a course of indisputable originality.
Subjoined is the Table of Contents. Pedlar Karl—Niagara; Lake Ontario; The St. Lawrence—The Cherokee's Threat—F. Smith—Edith Linsey (including Frost and Flirtation; Love and Speculation; A Digression; and Scenery and a Scene)—Scenes of Fear (containing the Disturbed Vigil; the Mad Senior; and the Lunatic's Skate)—Incidents on the Hudson—The Gipsey of Sardis—Tom Fane and I—Larks in Vacation (embracing Driving Stanhope pro. tem.; Saratoga Springs; and Mrs. Captain Thompson)—A Log in the Archipelago—and Miscellaneous Papers (being the Revenge of the Signor Basil; Love and Diplomacy; Minute Philosophies; and the Mad-house of Palermo.)