r cattle only, and such is
indeed the use it is put to.

The enormous cattle-ranches we read of exist here. The life of the
owners or managers is a very Robinson Crusoe kind of existence. Miles
probably from any rail, and miles also from their nearest neighbours,
the solitude is extreme. Women delight them not, for there are none.
An occasional newspaper finds its way there, but complete ignorance
of the affairs in the outer world is the rule. A ranch-man's library
is very limited, so not much can he do in the way of reading. He
lives in a log-hut he has probably built himself, and he or his
companion, if he has one, cook their simple fare. They have beef _ad
libitum_, milk by the pail, they can wallow in cream, and consume any
amount of butter. Tea and coffee too they have--sad the day they run
out--and possibly a bottle or two of spirits, but the last they are
very sparing of, for such is not easily obtained, and they are a
sober race. Two iron beds, which either of them gives up willingly to
a friend and makes his own on the floor (hospitality is a law with
them), a table or two, three or four chairs, shelves and pegs to put
and hang everything on, and this is all the furniture in the hut.
But, except at night, they are seldom indoors. Riding many miles
after stray cattle, milking, butter-making, rearing crops for cattle
food in the winter. There is plenty of occupation and they work well.

The cattle on such ranches stay out the year round. On the largest
the owner often knows not how many there are. Occasionally they are
driven into corrals (wooden enclosures), and counted, while the young
stock are then branded. The life is necessarily wild, rough, and
solitary. The ranch-owner, like Robinson Crusoe, is lord of all he
surveys for many miles round. His work is not hard, his gun, his rod,
his horses are his amusements, but domestic happiness, the charm of
"home" is not his. Think you he is to be envied or pitied?

All ranches in the States are not as above described. Where there is
more population the ranches are smaller and differ in other ways. I
shall have to describe one later which I bought, so will not do it
here.

I had with me a mattress and blankets for the emigrant car beyond New
Orleans, but having a first-class ticket I supposed this entitled me
to a regular made-up bed in the Pullman carriage which was next to
the first-class car. I found though it was not so, and that two
dollars a night had to be