An Active Settlement
Gen. Houston lives, when at home, at Huntsville, Texas; the inhabitants
mostly live, says Humboldt, Beeswax, Borax, or some of the other
historians, by hunting. The wolves act as watchmen at night, relieved
now and then by the Ingins, who make the wig business brisk by relieving
straggling citizens of their top-knots. A man engaged in a quiet smoke,
sees a deer or bear sneaking around, and by taking down his rifle, has
steaks for breakfast, and a haunch for next day's dinner, right at his
door. Vegetables and fruit grow naturally; flowers come up and bloom
spontaneously. The distinguished citizens wear buck-skin trowsers,
coon-skin hats, buffalo-skin overcoats, and alligator-hide boots. Old
San Jacinto walked into the Senate last winter--fresh from home--with a
panther-skin vest, and bear-skin breeches on! Great country, that
Texas.