Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/12

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moved on to better lands in the West. One house he pointed out as having been the residence of one of a band of pirates who occupied the country thirty or forty years ago. They had all been gradually killed.

During the day we met two men on horseback, one upon wheels, and passed one emigrant family. This was all the motion upon the principal road of the district.

The second day's camp was a few miles beyond the town of Crockett, the shire-town of Houston County. Not being able to find corn for our horses, we returned to the village for it.

We obtained what we wanted for a day's rest, which we proposed for Sunday, the following day, and loaded it into our emptied hampers. We then looked about the town for current provisions for ourselves. We were rejoiced to find a German baker, but damped by finding he had only molasses-cakes and candies for sale. There was no flour in the town, except the little of which he made his cakes. He was from Hamburgh, and though he found a tolerable sale, to emigrants principally, he was very tired of Crockett, and intended to move to San Antonio among his countrymen. He offered us coffee, and said he had had beer, but on Christmas-day a mass of people called on him; he had "treated" them all, and they had finished his supply.

We inquired at seven stores, and at the two inns for butter, flour, or wheat-bread, and fresh meat. There was none in town. One innkeeper offered us salt beef, the only meat, except pork, in town. At the stores we found crackers, worth in New York 6 cents a pound, sold here at 20 cents; poor raisins, 30 cents; Manilla rope, half-inch, 30 cents a pound. When butter was to be had it came in firkins from New York, although an excellent grazing country is near the town.

Trinity Bottom.—On landing on the west side of the