With the border ruffians; memories of the Far West, 1852-1868.

Book I Western Virginia, 1852-54 Page

Then and now — The Steerage of the Sutlej — Jack Galliers — Richmond, Virginia — The Canal Boat — 150 miles' tramp — A Veteran of 1812.

CHAPTER II A backwoodsman's home 13

A Forest Farm — Primitive Customs — Jack's Opinion of them — My First Deer — On the Road to Princeton — The Inhabitants thereof.

THE FARM ON THE BLUESTONB .... 23

A Court-day Gathering — George Baily and his Farm — I become a Land-owner — The Road-makers.

By Road and Canal to Richmond again — Jack and I at Work — Whiskey parts us — The Camp Meeting — Good Aunt Rhoda — Kindly Slave-owners.

vi CONTENTS

PAGE

" Still " Hunting — Burnett and Goorge Paris — Horse Trading — A Plausible Tale — I lose $250 — and nearly lose S3,000 — My Clever Dog — A Forest Fire — In the Princeton Gaol.

Jack Galliers again — Out on Bail — Settlement with Paris — A Rough and Tumble — Cattle-dealing — Sport in Western Virginia.

Slave-owning — Restrictions on moving Negroes — Ice on the Mississippi — Frost-bound in St. Louis — A Risky Acquaintance — The Ice breaks up, with ruin in its train.

Book II Kansas In 1855-59

A 450-mile Ride — The Runaway's Death — " Johmiy Cake" — Leavenworth "City" in 1855 — Tho "Boss" Gambler — House Building — Buffalo on the Prairie — First Meeting with Wild Indians — Causes of the Kansas " War " ; the Prelude of Secession.

I join a Ranger Coinpany — Stopping " Free Sellers " — The Sack of Lawrence — Murders at Lone Jack — Foraging leads to Shooting — Promoted 2nd Lieutenant — I Narrowly Escape Hanging — Stripped and Turned Loose.

CONTENTS vu

PAGE

The Delaware Reserve Sales — Scenes at the Auction — Owner of a Gambling Saloon — Claim-making on the Shawnee Reserve — " Shad " the Frontiersman — Judge Lecompton — Attempt to v^rrest Cline — Fracas at the Preaching — My Claim is " Jumped."

Settling down on Cedar Creole — Claim-jumpers Again — • Wagon-master with Major & Russell — A Bully at a Dance — Shawnee Half-breed Girls — Sally Blue-Jacket — A Shawnee Execution — Member of Johnson County Board — Sunday at the Ranch — A Fight between Rival Squatter Associations — Death of^Molesby — A well-armed Funeral Party.

A Western Tornado — A Lawsuit re Cedar Creek Claim — A Western Water-wizard — A Cold-blooded Murder — A Stealthy Ride into Missoin^i — A Clever Catch — A Trial and a Fiasco.

MiUner Let Loose— A Trip to Fort Kearney with Forty-five Wagons — Through tlie Sioux Country — A Vast Herd of Buffalo — The Daughter of Tecumseh — Wintering Cattle for " Billy " Russell — Margaret Hendricks, a Typical Western Girl — Cline redivivus — His Threats of Vengeance — He takes out a Warrant, and I leave Kansas.

Kidnapping on the Mississippi — Crossing the Alleghanies — Changes at Home — I revisit Monticello — Engineering at Philadelphia — There I meet Thompson — Go to Canada with him — We decide against Canada, and for Texas — The Journey thither — Landing at Indianola.

viii CONTENTS

Book III Texas, 1860-62 Chapter I

PAGE

Leave Hospitable Indianola, and start Up Country — En route for the Nueces— Adventures by the Way — Camp Fare — The " Colonel " Grumbles — Short of Water — Mosquitoes — Corpus Christi — A Fresh Outfit — Lawyer Davis — • " The Colonel " and the Pack Pony — The Bandera Country — The Lost Horses — We Buy a Ranch — and stock it — Our Possessions — Texas goes for Secession — A PoUtical Meeting — The Knights of the Golden Cross.

Colonel Robert E. Lee — The Surrender of General Twig — I Join the Volunteers — The Deserted Mormon Settlement — The Expedition to Val Verde — " The Major " — My First Brush with Comanch6s.

I go on Scout — 700 U.S. Troops Surrender — Thompson's deal with them — Mustered Out — Mixed Bathing — Dan Ragsdale — We Sell the Medio Ranch, and Buy Ragsdale's on the Frio — " Daddy " Green — The Horse-thief's Fate.

CHAPTER IV A rancher's paradise 183

Juan the Vaquero — First Ride to the Frio — The Finest Ranch in Texas— Riding up and down it — " The Colonel " goes Indian HT.mting — and much enjoys it.

CONTENTS ix

PAQE

The War Fover — Tlio Young Ranger's Fate — A Secret Society and its Head — Asa and the Rope — General Sibley and New Mexico — Third Trip to the Frio — My Pet Deer and its End — Colonel Sydney Johnson — A Patriarchal Procession — The House-warming.

" Hunting " on the Frio — " Lobos " and Coyotes — ^Comanches on the Warpath — How they killed the Reeders — Fort Inge and Lieutenant, afterwards General, Hood^What he did at Gaines' Mill.

" Calf-branding " — Running Mustangs and Stray Horses — Jacls; Vinton — Mexican Horse-thieves — Their Punishment — The War Fever — I catch it.

Book IV In The Confederate Service

Enlisted for the Front, but kept in Texas — Our Rascally Rulers — Fool's Errands of Sorts — A General's Inspection — Friedricksburg and the Bushwhackers — Martial Law as Administered by Dunn — A Rough March.

In a Mountainous Country — A Night Attack — The Germans lose heavily — Dastardly Work — Luck would like to Shoot me — With the Bearer Party to Fort Clark — How Luck paid me out.

CONTENTS

PAGE

To the Frio with Loo Oje — Indians in the Country — Buzzards on the Frio — What we saw at the Crossing — One Hundred Yards' Start — -A Lucky Shot — A Long Chase — What Dunn did with his Prisoners— Futile Efforts to quit his Command — A Quarrel in Quarters — In Vino Veritas.

Recruiting on the Frontier — Magruder at Galveston — A Restful Day at the Ranch— A " Doctor's " Diploma — The Ivilling of Antonio— I call in Asa Minshul — The Four Horsemen on the Prairie — The Capture, and After.

The March to Brownsville — The Hebrew's " Rifle Whiskey " — A Fandango — News from the Outer World — Am mistaken for a Deserter — The Officers of the 3rd Texas — A Yankee Brig Ashore — What befell her Cargo— Kaupmann and his Sixteen Garments — Cotton Dealings — The Prices of Goods.

The Yankees' Supposed Landing at Boca del Rio — The Funk at Brownsville — Scouts returning increase it — W^asp Fires the Barracks and Stores, and makes his celebrated Retreat to the San Gertrudes — -Vidal " goes Fanti " — Plunders the Ranches, and joins Cortinas— Lawyer Davis turned Colonel — His Camp near Boca del Rio — Voliuiteers for a Night Expedition — A Forty-mile Ride — Capture of the Mexican Guard House — Deserters' Camp Svu-prised — The Leaders Taken — Their Fate — I escort Davis to Magruder's Camp — His Subsequent Release — My Last Meeting with him.

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

Premature Rejoicings — Tricked out of a Commission Again — A Magnanimous Foe — Thompson Turns up at Brownsville — Yellow Fever — Nearly Convalescent— Has a Relapse — Nursing my Sick Friend — He tells me his Story — He goes " Home " at Sunrise — I Purchase a Substitute

— I get a Mail at Matamoras.

CHAPTER VIII

IN COMMAND AT LAST ! 310

Sixes and Sevens at the Ranch — My Friend Johns — His Captive and his Pantaloons — Tho Renegades at Piedras Negras — Mustangs for Sale — A Charging Steer — Universal Conscription — A Commission from the Governor of Texas.

CHAPTER IX

A Two-hundred Mile Ride to Lorado — Make Permanent Camp for my command — Sport with " Lobos " and Coyotes — Join Major Hatch's Command on an Indian-hunt — He Misses his Chance — March to Fort Lancaster — Indian Paintings at Piedra Pintada — San Felipe Springs — Fort Hudson — Dan Westfall, the Trailer — Scouting with Dan — Crossing the Pecos.

CHAPTER X WESTFALL'S STORY 332

The Camp in the " Mott " — A Fire and a Sleepless Night — A Sudden Attack — McCarthy's Answer — The Comanches Draw Off — Yarns round the Camp Fire— Dan Westfall tells His — The Notches on his Rifle — The Deserted Ranch on the Leona.

CHAPTER XI

The Scouts Report a Band of Indians — I find it a Body of White Men — I call on Them to Surrender on Promise to Spare their Lives — The Leader Yields in Nick of Time — xii , CONTENTS

PAGE

Major Hatch wants to Hang Them — My own Boys Support my Refusal — '' Now See to it that I haven't to Shoot Yovi " — Fruitless Wanderings after Indians — Sent on Scout with Mexicans — Their Cowardice — We white men hold a Strong Position— No Water and no Tobacco ! — Eight of the Deserters Escape.

CHAPTER XII

A Dry March — The First Day without Water — Tlio Major Still Obstinate — The Second Day without Water — The Third Day we can stand it no longer — A Disorganised Rabble— A Drink at Last— The JNIajor and I Part — The Back Trail — A Difficult and Unknown Country — Westfall Brings us Through.

CHAPTER XIII

Magruder and " Commissary " Banks — Colonel Ford and his Merry Men — Resignation of Command and Re-election — The Expedition to Fort Lancaster— Major Hunter's Reconnaissance — The Enemy's False Security — A Night Attack — Surprise and Rout of Californians.

CHAPTER XIV

An Unfortunate Spec. — Comanch^s Again — A Race for Cover — We Hold a " Mott " — Jack Hillson's Shot— -A Chip of the Old Block — The Fight on the Hondo — Comanches in Strong Position — I Shoot the Big Buck — A Charge and a Surprise — The Indians Bolt.

CHAPTER XV

Jim and Dick French — The Mvirder of the Mexicans — French senior Hanged in Front of the Padre's House in San Antonio — The Boys Agree to Bide their Time — Jim and Dick Avenge their Father's Death — I meet them at Atacosa Court House — Their Doings There — Their Search for Asa Minshul.

CONTENTS xiii

Book V The Break-up, And After

PAOIil MY company's last INDIAN FIGHT . . . 395

Tho End of Secession — Activity of the Indians, Burning, Slaying, Scalping, on the Middle Nuecos — They Kill the Cousin of my junior Lieutenant, Dan Williains — He and Fred English, the senior Lieutenant, set off in Pursviit — I Catch Them vip too Late — How these Lads threw Away thoir Lives — A Near Thing — Keeping the Indians on the Run — ^Burying our Dead.

Tho Ruin of the Sovith — Clemency of the North — The Federals in San Antonio — Lenient Treatment of the Friedricksburg Murderers— The Federal General offers me a Captain's Cominission — The Hunt for Lost Cattle— My Reception at my Friend's Ranch — A Morning's Fishing — I Nearly get Caught Myself.

Heavy Going Stops Pursuit of Thieves — Retiu-n to the Carisa — News from the " Prairie Schooner " — To the Rescue — The Scene at the Camp Fire — The Wounded Man — Tliirst for Vengeance — A Melancholy Procession — Cattle-driving on the Prairie — Voices of tlie Night — Working the Chaparral—A Message from tho Alcalde of San Juan.

" El Rio Bravo "—President Diaz — The Pueblo of San Juan — Tho Inhabitants Thereof — A Typical Mexican Village of those Days — Tho Houses and their Occupants— Tho Alcalde and his Vonta — Arrieros to the Rescue ! — xjV contents

PAQB

" Liberales y los Coutrarios " — A Restless Night — Arrival of the Partido — Hiding the Cattle— Don Immanuel gives a Feast — A very Special Dish — The Deal Concluded — " Vaya te Con Dios ! ' '

Start with 220 Prime Beeves — The Stampede — Twenty-five Head Lost— The Cotton Region — Ruin of the Planters — Conduct of the Freedmen — A Mulatto Slave -ownor — Thunderstorm in the Bush — Another Stampede — A Lucky Find — I Sell my Cattle on Border of Louisiana, but go with them to New Orleans — I go into a Hog Spec. — Hog-driving — a Trial of Patience — Floundering Through an Icy Swamp — Ship 463 of the Brutes on ss. Tatan at Chafalaya Landing.

At the Hog-pens — Waiting for the Verdict — Noel's two good Shots — The Market is Bad ! — I clear out at a Heavy Loss — New Orleans after the War — Artemus Ward's Lecture — The Keans in " Macbeth " — The Boss Gambler — The Tables Turned on Him — On the Magnolia to Indianola — Waiting for the Train — A Texan Station Master — " The Railroad's on the Tight ! " — The " Engineer " and his Boilers — Left in the Lurch — Conductor goes in search of the Train — Reach Victoria at Last — Thence by Stage to San Antonio, where I have News from Mexico.

Return to the Frio — Cattle Droving to Monterey — A Quarrel on the Leona — My Last Brush with tho Comanches — A Successful Deal and a Safe Return with tho Plunder — T hand over the Ranch to Jack Vinton and start for San Antonio, en rotUe for Home — Lvixuries of Ocean Travol — England in the Leafy Month of Jime — Bad News from Texas — I Return to wind up my Affairs — Mr. Spofforth's Tempting Offer — The Firm of Hughes & Co., Beef Pael;ers — Yellow Fever at Indianola — Dr. Hughes' Confrere — Sam Slocum — His Grievance against his "Ma" — The Packing Business a Failure — I sell my Ranch and Stock, and leaving Texas for good, settle down in England.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

E. H. WILLIAMS, J.P., ^TAT 70 .... . Frontispiece

PACING PAGE «■ SIOUX INDIANS .......... 76

V A CATTLE CORRAL .......... 218

THE AUTHOR IN RANGER UNIFORM ...... 230

Photographed at San Antonio, 1863

CIANT CACTI ON THE RIO GRANDE BORDER ..... 352 • A MEXICAN PUEBLO 428

Introduction

He whose adventurous story is told in the following pages was born in the summer of 1831, the eldest of a large family, his father being a country clergyman.

His father and mother intended him for the Church ; he himself had aspirations for the Army, or the Indian Service, but neither could be managed for lack of means.

Finally he went to sea as a middy on Messrs. Green's East Indiaman the Madagascar, sailing from London in February, 1848, when he was nearly seventeen years old. Green's was in those days the best service in England ; but it was too staid, too quiet, for a youth like this, thirsting for adventure, so after one voyage to India he gave it up.

After this he shipped as an ordinary seaman on a Liverpool barque, bound for Callao to load with guano at the Pixo Islands. The ship, having got her evil-smelling cargo on board, returned to Callao, where the boy (he was only eighteen) deserted to escape the brutal illtreatment of the captain. When the barque had sailed he emerged from his hiding-place in the pampas, and for some months worked as mate on board a small coasting brig.

The gold fever in California was then at its height, and his next idea was to get to the new Eldorado if possible, where fortune awaited the fortunate and adventures were to be met with at every turn. But no passage was obtainable for love or money ; for every ship bound for San Francisco was full of eager gold-seekers and there xvi INTRODUCTION

was no room for him. So at last, weary of waiting, he shipped as an A.B. on board a 600-ton barque, bound for Dundee with a cargo of guano.

It is not proposed to tell his adventures on that leaky old tub, which took six months to roll herself round the Horn to the Cove of Cork. Suffice it to say that the miserable craft, like so many of her class in those bad days, was short of hands, short of provisions, short of water, short of everything, in fact, but that awful guano that pervaded everything on board.

With a dislocated shoulder, and half dead with scurvy, the lad was discharged at Cork, and sent to hospital, whence, being then as tough a specimen of humanity as you could wish to see, he speedily made his way home, in no way the worse for his rough experiences.

But he wouldn't give up the sea yet, and next went a voyage to Adelaide in a full-rigged emigrant ship named the Andromache, as third officer. From that port, which in the year of grace 1850 consisted of a few " frame " houses and many streets pegged out by speculators, they sailed for Melbourne, where the young ship's officer went wallaby-hunting with some friends over country now covered with villas and parks, and had good sport of its kind.

When, after a brief holiday at home, the Andromache was due to sail again, he was persuaded to give up the sea, in the hope that he would settle down in England. So the good ship, with its full complement of passengers and crew, sailed from London without him, on what proved her last voyage, for she was never heard of more, and must have foundered with all hands somewhere on the stormy ocean.

But he couldn't settle down to life in quiet England ; the restless craving for adventure was too strong on him, and if he must leave the sea, he would fare forth to the West and the backwoods of the Great Republic. So, after a brief apprenticeship to farming with the Vicarage

INTRODUCTION xvii

tenant, he sailed from Liverpool on a small barque called the Sutlej, bound for City Point, Virginia.

Having given this brief sketch of the opening chapters of an adventurous life, the rest of the story shall be told mainly in the words of the actor therein, from his notes and diaries, supplemented by many a yarn told by him to the writer as they smoked their pipes together by the happy fireside of the peaceful English home in which he lived, and in which he ended his days, full of years and full of honour.

A strange, wild story it is too, and perhaps worth the telling, if only for the reason that the stage on which it was enacted has so completely changed that the scenes in which the adventurer took his part, and the life he led in the far West and South, can never recur as long as the world endures. Civilisation, railways, and the advancing tide of population have swept them into the limbo of forgotten things so completely that it is hard to realise that such a state of society could ever really have existed only forty or fifty years ago.

The first act runs its course in Western Virginia amongst the then most primitive, simple, and manly race of farmers to be found in any part of the world. Far from railways, towns and civilisation, these simple folks led their pastoral lives in great content and comfort. All their wants were self-supplied, to their very clothes, which they spun and weaved and made themselves. Work on their farms, hunting and fishing, a visit to the distant " Court House " in the far-away town or village, with now and then a " preaching " or " camp meeting," filled their lives, and they were content.

Act the Second has for its scene the wildest of the Wild West — Kansas — where in 1855-56 was fought the prelude to the great War of Secession, the epoch-making struggle between North and South, which settled once for all the burning question of slavery or freedom for the negro in the United States. In that border region, where

b xviii INTRODUCTION

each man was a law unto himself, and life was not valued " at a pin's fee," deeds were done, on hoth sides, at which we may well shudder.

The story is a dreadful one, but it is fairly and frankly told by him who took an active part on the pro-slavery side, and who never hesitated to risk his life for the cause he had espoused.

Act the Third, after a brief interlude at home and in Canada, opens in Texas, on a cattle ranch, in the heart of the Comanche (Indian) country.

Cattle raising and desperate fighting with the Comanches, the most warlike of all the Indian tribes, fill the first scenes.

Then comes the War of the Secession.

Shortly after the end of the war in 1865, the curtain falls, and the story is finished.

Book I Western Virginia 1852-54

WESTWARD HO !

It was in the early spring of the year 1852 that I sailed from Liverpool to seek my fortune in the United States.

Those who have not personally watched the growth of that marvellous country cannot realise the changes those fifty years have wrought, so long in a man's life, so short a span in a nation's history. Then there were thirty-one States in the Union with a population of about twenty-five millions ; now there are forty-one States, and the population verges on eighty million souls. Railways were comparatively few ; now there are nearly two hundred thousand miles in operation.

When I first went West, in the early 'fifties, all the region west of the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountahis, from about 35° N. to the limits of what are now the States of North Dakota and Montana, was inhabited only by roaming bands of Indians, except in Kansas and Nebraska, where there were a few settlers. Where to-day stand flourishing towns and cities, and over the plains where now is heard the busy hum of the steam reaping and thrashing machines, roamed countless thousands of buffalo ; as extinct to-day in those lands as the dodo is in his.

But the greatest change that Time has brought, since I first knew the States, is the abolition of negro slavery.

In those days the Southern States, with their great " Institution," were at the zenith of their power, and were ambitious of extending it beyond the boundary to which they had been restricted by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

I fought for that cause in Kansas, in what may be called the prelude to the great struggle between the North and South, and in Texas, and elsewhere, afterwards ; for in those days I believed in slavery, and owned some few negroes myself. Looking back through all these years, whilst I sit by my quiet, happy English fireside, I confess that I was mistaken, and freely admit that it is well the great fight ended as it did. But though I make this admission, I think it is only right to put it on record that, as far as my own personal observation went, the cruelties of slavery have been over-drawn.

The separation of families, by the sale of the father, mother or children, was cruel and detestable. Doubtless there were here and there brutal masters, and worse overseers ; but these were the exception. Negroes, it must be remembered, were chattels, and most valuable chattels too, and it was the owner's interest to treat them well. On the great cotton plantations of the South, where the planter lived in patriarchal state, and owned perhaps two or three hundred slaves, or more, the negroes were generally well treated and happy enough, except for the overshadowing fear of separation.

Slavery on the American Continent has vanished into the limbo of almost forgotten things ; the planter, with his opulent, easy-going life and boundless hospitality, is extinct, but the negro remains, and increases and multiplies, after his kind, and, as I gather, becomes a daily more and more difficult problem to deal with.

It was in the month of February, 1852, being then a lad of twenty, but with some rough experiences at sea behind me, that I set sail from Liverpool in the Sutlej, a barque bound for City Point, Virginia.

The capital I had at my disposal was £400, which my father had raised for me with some difficulty. Resources

JACK GALLIERS 5

had to be carefully husbanded, so I took a steerage passage, and shared the discomforts thereof with a party of emigrants going out to settle on lands in West Virginia. Most of these had been lured to try their fortunes in that forest land by the specious tongue of an agent in London, and had cause to rue the day they met him. I myself was one of his intended victims, but broke loose from his toils as soon as I saw the country in which he intended to bury me.

Amongst many presents given me by kind friends I had a beautiful liver-coloured setter, bought at a great price for me by four kind lady friends, who lived together in my father's parish, and were a centre of peace and goodness for all the neighbourhood. I called the dog " Manor " after the house from which he came, and he was a true friend and companion to me until, to my great sorrow, I lost him some years after in the West.

Amongst the emigrants I found a typical navvy from Lancashire, Jack Galliers by name, who for some reason took to me at once, appointing himself my henchman, looking after my dog, and my things, with much assiduity. He was a very fine specimen of that wonderful breed, the British navvy, which no other country, as far as I know, can produce. He dressed the part, too, to perfection, in massive hob-nailed high-lows and moleskin garments.

His contempt for America, and Americans, and all their ways and doings, was unbounded, nor did he ever attempt to disguise his sentiments. Indeed, so much was this the case that when, in his most candid moods, he would " dom " America, and all things therein, I often feared he would be mobbed. But no, the Virginians only seemed to marvel at him and his ways, as though he had been some strange denizen of an unknown land. When he clenched his " fistises " and bragged what he could do with them, or boasted that " my country," as he always called it, was far better than theirs, they only laughed, and treated him to whiskey, of which poor Jack could swallow any quantity. Then they would get him to sing, which he did readily enough in a fine, mellow tenor ; or dance a clog dance in those thundering high-lows, to their intense amusement. So Jack, his eccentricities notwithstanding, became a most popular character wherever he went, and 1 had no more anxiety on his behalf.

The old Sutlej was loaded with pig-iron and made very bad weather of it, so it was six weeks before we dropped anchor in the James River. It was a Sunday morning, and a lovely spring day, so I borrowed a boat and, with a few of my fellow-passengers, pulled ashore.

We found ourselves on a tobacco plantation, and there first saw negro slavery in the States. The planter, who received and welcomed us most hospitably, owned about three hundred negroes, who seemed to be very happy and contented, as far as we could see. He also owned a pack of fox-hounds, of which he was very proud.

Returning to the ship, we found a tug waiting to take us all up the river to Richmond, about twenty miles, for the Sutlej could not cross the bar.

Arrived there. Jack and I, and some seven more, who had attached themselves to us, found accommodation in a small hotel. We were, no doubt, a strange enough looking party, and the natives were much puzzled to make us out. When, however. Jack began to show off, and Manor to do his tricks, at which he was very clever, they made up their minds we were showmen on tour, and I did not undeceive them.

I had a letter of credit on a merchant firm in Richmond on whom I called at once. The partners were most friendly and tried to persuade me to remain in the town, instead of going up country. But I had made up my mind to see what it was like at any rate, and told them I would go, but would leave my money with them, except what I wanted for current expenses.

THE CANAL BOAT 7

These gentlemen kindly gave me full particulars of the route, which was first by canal passenger-boat to Buchanan, the head of navigation, and some sixty miles above Lynchburg, the great centre of the tobacco trade, and the second largest slave market in the States, From Buchanan we had to make our way across country, some 150 miles on foot, as best we might, to Wyandotte County, West Virginia.

When I told my plans to Jack he " dommed " the country with much emphasis, but said he would go anywhere with me, and five others elected to join the party. So after a brief stay in Richmond we left the quiet town, little thinking that, in ten years' time, the eyes of the world would be anxiously fixed upon it, whilst the Titanic struggle between North and South waxed ever more desperate and bitter.

Canal passenger-boats are things of the past, and pity it is they are so, if one were not in a hurry to finish one's journey. Towed by two horses, we pursued our leisurely way so slowly that passengers wanting exercise could get out and walk, and easily keep up with the conveyance.