of the country. Indeed the place looked so
desolate and uninviting, that there was little inducement to remain on
_terra firma_, and it was with a feeling of relief that we once more found
ourselves on board the schooner.

We took three days to sail up the river Brazos to the town of Brazoria, a
distance of thirty miles. On the first day nothing but meadow land was
visible on either side of us; but, on the second, the monotonous
grass-covered surface was varied by islands of trees, and, about twenty
miles from the mouth of the river, we passed through a forest of
sycamores, and saw several herds of deer and flocks of wild turkeys. At
length we reached Brazoria, which at the time I speak of, namely, in the
year 1832, was an important city--for Texas, that is to say--consisting of
upwards of thirty houses, three of which were of brick, three of planks,
and the remainder of logs. All the inhabitants were Americans, and the
streets arranged in American fashion, in straight lines and at right
angles. The only objection to the place was, that in the wet season it
was all under water; but the Brazorians overlooked this little
inconvenience, in consideration of the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the
soil. It was the beginning of March when we arrived, and yet there was
already an abundance of new potatoes, beans, peas, and artichokes, all of
the finest sorts and most delicious flavour.

At Brazoria, my friend and myself had the satisfaction of learning that
our land-certificates, for which we had each paid a thousand dollars, were
worth exactly nothing--just so much waste paper, in short--unless we chose
to conform to a condition to which our worthy friends, the Galveston Bay
and Texas Land Company, had never made the smallest allusion.

It appeared that in the year 1824, the Mexican Congress had passed an act
for the encouragement of emigration from the United States to Texas. In
consequence of this act, an agreement was entered into with contractors,
or _empresarios_, as they call them in Mexico, who had bound themselves to
bring a certain number of settlers into Texas within a given time and
without any expense to the Mexican government. On the other hand, the
Mexican government had engaged to furnish land to these emigrants at the
rate of five square leagues to every hundred families; but to this
agreement one condition was attached, and it was, that all settlers should
be, or become, Roman Catholics. Failing this, the val