rred on my horse, believing we should be in time to
witness some cockfighting or a boxing-match; but my American
fellow-travellers, better acquainted with the manners and customs of the
natives, declared it was the "Court House." As we had nothing to do
there, we turned our horses' heads towards the tavern, and the barking
of a pack of hungry dogs soon called around us a host of the Bostonians.

It is strange that the name of city should be given to an unfinished
log-house, but such is the case in Texas; every individual possessing
three hundred acres of land calls his lot a city, and his house becomes
at once the tavern, the post office the court-house, the gaol, the bank,
the land-office, and in fact everything. I knew a man near the Red
River, who had obtained from government an appointment of postmaster,
and, during the five years of his holding the office, he had not had a
single letter in his hand.

This city mania is a very extraordinary disease in the United States,
and is the cause of much disappointment to the traveller. In the Iowa
territory, I once asked a farmer my way to Dubugue.

"A stranger, I reckon," he answered; "but no matter, the way is plain
enough. Now, mind what I say: after you have forded the river, you will
strike the military road till you arrive in the prairie; then you ride
twenty miles east, till you arrive at Caledonia city; there they will
tell you all about it."

I crossed the river, and, after half an hour's fruitless endeavours, I
could not find the military road, so I forded back, and returned to my
host.

"Law!" he answered; "why, the trees are blazed on each side of the
road."

Now, if he had told me that at first, I could not have mistaken, for I
had seen the blazing of a bridle-path; but as he had announced a
military road, I expected, what it imported, a military road. I resumed
my journey and entered the prairie. The rays of the sun were very
powerful, and, wishing to water my horse, I hailed with delight a
miserable hut, sixteen feet square, which I saw at about half a mile
from the trail. In a few minutes I was before the door, and tied my
horse to a post, upon which was a square board bearing some kind of
hieroglyphics on both sides. Upon a closer inspection, I saw upon one
side, "Ice," and upon the other, "POSTOFF."

"A Russian, a Swede, or a Norwegian," thought I, knowing that Iowa
contained eight or ten thousand emigrants of these countries. "Ice--
well,