's arrangement with the Harpers, he was to
devote a certain number of months of every year to the editing of The
Weekly, and the remainder to travel and the writing of his experiences
for Harper's Monthly. He started on the first of these trips in
January, 1892, and the result was a series of articles which afterward
appeared under the title of "The West from a Car Window."

January, 1892. (Some place in Texas)

I left St. Louis last night, Wednesday, and went to bed and slept for
twelve hours. To-day has been most trying and I shall be very glad to
get on dry land again. The snow has ceased although the papers say
this is the coldest snap they have had in San Antonio in ten years. It
might have waited a month for me I think. It has been a most dreary
trip from a car window point of view. Now that the snow has gone,
there is mud and ice and pine trees and colored people, but no cowboys
as yet. They talk nothing but Chili and war and they make such funny
mistakes. We have a G. A. R. excursion on the train, consisting of one
fat and prosperous G. A. R., the rest of the excursion having backed
out on account of Garza who the salient warriors imagine as a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour. One old chap with white hair came on
board at a desolate station and asked for "the boys in blue" and was
very much disgusted when he found that "that grasshopper Garza" had
scared them away-- He had tramped five miles through the mud to greet a
possible comrade and was much chagrined. The excursion shook hands
with him and they took a drink together. The excursion tells me he is
a glass manufacturer, an owner of a slate quarry and the best embalmer
of bodies in the country. He says he can keep them four years and does
so "for specimens" those that are left on his hands and others he
purchases from the morgue. He has a son who is an actor and he fills
me full of the most harrowing tales of Indian warfare and the details
of the undertaking business. He is SO funny about the latter that I
weep with laughter and he cannot see why-- Joe Jefferson and I went to
a matinee on Wednesday and saw Robson in "She stoops to Conquer." The
house was absolutely packed and when Joe came in the box they yelled
and applauded and he nodded to them in the most fatherly, friendly way
as though to say "How are you, I don't just remember your name but I'm
glad to see you--" It was so much sweeter than if he had got up and
bowed as I wo