involved, and I was fully aware beforehand what they would
be. The place was on the border, in the most disorganised state of
society conceivable, and, in fact, completely swarming with guerillas or
brigands, _sans merci_, who simply killed and stripped everybody who fell
into their hands. All over our border or frontier there are innumerable
families who have kept up feuds to the death, or _vendettas_, in some
cases for more than a century; and now, in the absence of all civil law,
these were engaged in wreaking their old grudges without restraint, and
assuredly not sparing any stranger who came between them.

I had a friend in C. A. Dana, the Assistant-Secretary of War, and another
in Colonel Henry Olcott, since known as the theosophist. The latter had
just come from the country which I proposed to visit. I asked him to aid
me in getting military passes and introductions to officers in command.
He promised to do so, saying that he would not go through what I had
before me for all the oil in America. {274} And, indeed, one could not
take up a newspaper without finding full proof that Tennessee was at that
time an _inferno_ or No-man's Land of disorder.

I went to it with my eyes wide open. After so many years of work, I was
as poor as ever, and the seven years of harvest which I had prophesied
had come, and I was not gathering a single golden grain. My father
regarded me as a failure in life, or as a literary ne'er-do-weel,
destined never to achieve fortune or gain an _etat_, and he was quite
right. My war experience had made me reckless of life, and speculation
was firing every heart. I bought myself a pair of long, strong, overall
boots and blanket, borrowed a revolver, arranged money affairs with Mr.
Lea, who always acted with the greatest generosity, intelligence, and
kindness, packed my carpet-bag, and departed. It was midwinter, and I
was destined for a wintry region, or Venango County, where, until within
the past few months, there had been many more bears and deer than human
beings. For it was in Venango, Pennsylvania, that the oil-wells were
situated, and Mr. Lea judged it advisable that I should first visit them
and learn something of the method of working, the geology of the region,
and other practical matters.

My brother accompanied me to the station, and I left at about 8 p.m.
After a long, long, weary night and day, I arrived at an oil town, whose
name I now forget. By great good fortune I