azement "Why, Sir," he answered, "you
turn your back to it; you have passed it eighteen miles behind."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed: "I never left the trail, except to water my
horse at a little hut."

"Well," he answered, "that was at General Hiram Washington Tippet's; he
keeps the post-office--why, Sir, that was Caledonia city."

I thanked him, unsaddled my horse, and bivouacked where I was, laughing
heartily at my mistake in having asked for _ice_, when the two sides of
the board made _post-office._

But I must return to Boston and its court-house. As it was the time of
the assizes, some fifty or sixty individuals had come from different
quarters, either to witness the proceedings, or to swap their horses,
their saddles, their bowie-knife, or anything; for it is while law is
exercising its functions that a Texan is most anxious to swap, to cheat,
to gamble, and to pick pockets and quarrel under its nose, just to show
his independence of all law.

The dinner-bell rang a short time after our arrival, and for the first
time in my life I found myself at an American _table-d'hote_. I was
astonished, as an Indian well might be. Before my companions and self
had had time to sit down and make choice of any particular dish, all was
disappearing like a dream. A general opposite to me took hold of a
fowl, and in the twinkling of an eye, severed the wings and legs. I
thought it was polite of him to carve for others as well as himself, and
was waiting for him to pass over the dish after he had helped himself,
when, to my surprise, he retained all he had cut off, and pushed the
carcase of the bird away from him. Before I had recovered from my
astonishment, his plate was empty. Another seized a plate of
cranberries, a fruit I was partial to, and I waited for him to help
himself first and then pass the dish over to me; but he proved to be
more greedy than the general, for, with an enormous horn spoon, he
swallowed the whole.

The table was now deserted by all except by me and my companions, who,
with doleful faces, endeavoured to appease our hunger with some stray
potatoes. We called the landlord, and asked him for something to eat; it
was with much difficulty that we could get half a dozen of eggs and as
many slices of salt pork. This lesson was not thrown away upon me; and
afterwards, when travelling in the States, I always helped myself before
I was seated, caring nothing for my neighbours. Politeness at meals may
be and is