Year: 1879

that they have wOOlen mill and had cotton factory
till a tornado dashed il INTO the river a few years
ago. and they would start other manufactures If
miserly old curmudgeoT would cease playing dog
in-thc-manger with the fine water-power furnished
by the COmal.


A DRIVE ACROSS COUNTRY.


found little satisfaction in travelling boxed up
in a stage through a country deserving more than
passing glimpses through dirty coach windows, so
I made the journey from New-Braunfels TO San
Marcos, the county-seat of the next county in an
open buggy drawn by two good horses and driven
by a German who was susceptible to questions and
impaired considerable information we boNled
rapidly along the soft, spongy. black roads. We
fOrded the Comal where a freshet had swept away
a new iron bridge and the Guadalupe, which is too
big stream to bridge at the expense of the taxpay
ers and drove through fine rolling country sweep
ing away from high cedar-cothed ridge in long,
bilowy swells of cotton fields and pastures dotted
with clumps of live oaks. Thisridge runs from san
Antonio northcastward far beyond Austin. and is
much the most prominent feature in the
scenery Of the settled portion of Western
Texas, having at a little distance the APP
pearance of a mountain range. II is the
birthplace of nearly all the streams that flow
toward the Gulf west Of the Coorado,and possesses
the remarkable faculty of sending ont young rivers
from single springs under its limestone cliffs. Thus
the san Antonio the Guadalupe, the Coma the San
Marcos and many lesser streams start on their way
to the sea with a volume of water that makes them
respectable and useful from their first dash over
the pebbles. The ridge Is only 600 feet high, but
ITS rugged sides. rocky ledges and clothing of ever
green's warrant the people in speaking of il as the
mountains" They call the country beyond " in the
mountains" and say it is broken and wooded as
far back as they have any knowledge of if, with
sparse settlements along the little valleys for fifty
miles or so westward.


As long as we are in Comal County the small
farms continue, with smooth fields inclosed by good
cedar fences or substantial stone walls, and trim
little houses with barns and stables near at hand
but once over the line into Hays County the popu-
lation changes to the old Southern element, the
fields are larger and more caralessly TILED, the
houses often weatherbeaten and dilapdated,
the fences in bad order, and the negro
and the mule. those inseparable COM
paniOns in toll all through the South, become
noticeable features in the landscape. Wretched
negro shantics appear by the roadside and there is
everywhere the air of thTftlessness and shlttess-
ness that chGI2CteTZes most rural districts IN the
South. The land is good, but negro labor and white
laziness Will not bring out its best capacities. We
stopped az a big unpaiuted farmhouse where a red
faced old man and "a sad-eyCd girl were shiverlug
over an open fire in bare, dirty room, furnished
only with a bed, a table and three wooden chairs.
They said II was too cold TO do anything, although
the mercury was Just down To the freezing point.
IL was cold, though, IN that old Tlckety house. Tor
the north wind came in through a hundred ChinkS
on its way up the big chimney. The old man owned
five hundred good fertile acres, but did not have
energy enough to plaster his house or stop the
cracks He talked first about the good old days OF
slavery then changing the subject, said the country
was so healthy people seldom died. but he admitted
finally that pneumonia took on great many. No
wonder, IN q climate where the temperature often
falls forty degrees III as many minutes and where
the people 90 hiny clad aud live IN houses through
which the raw winds whistle at their sweet
wills. The old planter himself appeared to stand IN
no danger of pneumonia. Nhiskey was evidently
what allied him.


ment below the poor whites and below the negroes
in the social scale-lOwclass MeXicans who live like
savages in nuts Of brush, sticks and straw that
would be diSgracetul as stables IN the North. we
passed cluster of four Of these huts III the drive TO
San Marcos. In building them a rude framework
is first set up, the roof and walls are then con-
structed of cOnstaks, the mud floor is pounded
till IL is hard, chimney built of rough stones ana
mud at the gable, blanket hung up for door and
the dwelling is ready for occupancy. Two young
women calle out Of one Of the huts we drove
by They wore calico gowns, and their heads and
did not wholly conceal their cOmely olive faces ana
piercing black eyes. The girls seized upon two
peaceable chickens that had been engaged IN
friendly search f0r worms. set them Deak 10 Deak,
rubbed their heads together, and with much laugh
ing, scolding and Spanish chatter were succeeding
III irritating the fowls into a cOmbatlve temper as
we lost sight OF this bit of Mexican life American
soil.


SAN MARCOS AND ITS WONDERFUL SPRING.


Toward evening. coming upon the top of a hill,
strikingy beautiful sight burst upon our gaze.
Three OF four miles away, standing out on the dark
green background of the mountan-side with the
dstinctness of a well-cut cameo, rose stately
white-waled town, surmounted by a lofty castle
like building. Surely this cannot be in Texas.
thought; this is like fair city the slopes of
the Appennines. Alas! 1t was only illusion. born
of distance a burst Of sunlight and some atmos-
pheric quality that exaggerated the height of far
off objects. On nearer approach the town proved
to be only an ordinary struggling, dirty Southern
village, and the castle diminished TO a plain little
stone courthouse san Marcos for this the
place contains thousand inhabitants, mostly en-
gagged in selling dry goods. groceries, and whiskey
to the neighbOring country and buying its cotton.
l discovered in 1t four things worthy of notice,
however: A school for boys called by the pretty
name of ''Corona Institute" TO which the farmers
sons ride in merry cavalcades from all the region
around an editor who wandered down here from
that good old Indiana Quaker town Of Richmond,
who tells the people in his paper that they ought to
diversity their industry establish Summer re-
SORT build -four mills. make butter. keep bees and
do various other things, and who with sadness
that they on in the same old way in spite OF his
advice a German landlord who gets up delicious
supper Of fish and venisonv and lastly the big
spring. The pride of San Marcos is its spring. and
well it may be- for wonderful spring 1t is indeed.
The san Marcos River leaps out of this spring, so
deep that it comes up to your wagon hubs, and so
broad that it is a good stones throw across. The
spring is a little lake quarter of mile long and
hundred yards wide, lying under the rocky base of
tie mountain andts waters are so transparent that
the waving green plumes Of the beautiful aquatic
plants growing on the bottom seem if covered
only by a thin pane of glass. II the racing rapid
rier that rshes ont of the beautiful lake were IN
New-Engand il would turn hundreds of busy
wheels; but il is in the South. and does no work
but furnish power 10 ugly little grlst-mil that
is a blot on the fair landscape.


The nnrther WIS stlll blowing and there was pros