surrounded by a low stone wall, enclosing nine depositories of the dead.

The mansion is a noble structure, combining elegance and utility with strength, and has for its model an ancient Castle in the highlands of Scotland, a handsome portico on two sides of the edifice, is studded with large but beautiful columns. The apartments are neatly finished and yet in good order; but the ground and out-houses have been much neglected, and the property is now owned and occupied by a Jew! a Capt. Levi, of the U. States Navy.

The road from Charlottsville, leads a circuitous ascent of about two miles up the miniature mountains, to the mansion and grave of Jefferson. On entering the gate, several roads diverge to various directions through a handsome grove, winding to the summit on which the house stands; and at a short distance within the grove, rest the remains of the sage of Monticello.

Here, when surveying the extensive country within view, with its red land farms, and comfortable mansions, the lovely little Ravana meandering in the distance, the smiling town of Charlottsville, teeming with life and animation, at the base of the classic mountain, the long range of colonades and stately edifices, which are the laboratories of genius and talent, the mind was irresistably borne back to the time when this highly improved country was as that now is, surrounding the Peak of Otter, in Texas; the hunting ground of the red man and the home of uninstructed nature in the forest.

If it is invariably true, then that like causes produce the same effects, the road for the inhabitants of Texas to travel is plain; keeping always before them the fact, that man to be civilized must be instructed; that our arts and our arms are but messengers of mischief in unskilful hands, and that there is no state of society so insufferably bad

as that of semi-barbarians, who have learned our vices, but not enough of civilization to comprehend or practice its virtues.

Let education be complete,

Or the end in view will meet defeat.

Is this a digression from the subject matter of the work? No; in the language of a celebrated Roman patriot, "I am a man, and therefore interested in the welfare of mankind"—and who that is not entrenched narrow, contracted, and bigoted feelings can fail to feel the force and majesty of the noble Roman's remark and under influences which it tends to excite, not find his senses chastened and his mind expanded and exalted. Such a sentiment comprehends the vast results of intellectual achievements; all the moral attributes of our nature, all the finer emotions and benevolent duties, of life in the family circle, as well as the zenith of patriotism in the love of our species and country.

The man who is indifferent to the condition of society, who takes no interest in the daily accumulating means brought into action for its amelioration and improvement, is not only a useless drone but a positive burden on the community who receive from him no aids or benefits while he is reaping rewards from the labour of others, without bearing any of the heat or burdens of the day. Such lethargy of soul, whether real or affected, that many exhibit to every thing around them, save only their indi vidual, but short sighted interest, is highly criminal in every rational being, and particularly so in an American citizen, and need not be expected in the conduct of one who has undertaken the task of instruction, and who is the natural and responsible guardian for those who are to mingle for good or for evil in the busy world, when I

sleep with my fathers. I do not, however, indulge the vain hope of pleasing every one; I am only determined to aim at nothing short of what I believe to be the duty of every good citizen, and shall remain better satisfied in defeat when pursuing a proper end than I could possibly experience when enjoying the most triumphant success purchased by a conscious degradation, or in any way attained by ignoble means.

Who then can promise even himself any permanent happiness when he does not feel a single impulse for the prosperity of his fellow man; who when not surrounded by favourable circumstances for the cultivation of the finer feelings of our nature, find the buds of promised happiness blasted, the source of his delight dryed up, and a dreary vacuum left around his heart, to say nothing of that natural instinct which prompts us to love those, to whom we are bound by ties of friendship and kindred blood; and if any there be who have not felt its holy influence, but are strangers to every emotion growing out of the association, I envy not their feelings.

If pleasure dwells unmixed below the skies,
Such pleasure must from sacred friendship rise;
Of all which animates the human frame,
'Tis the noblest ardour and the purest flame.

Learn then, my reader, to toil for this end,
That you may earn the kindness of a friend;
Not his shadow-that is gained as soon as sought,

And quite as easy lost, without a fault.

Then should you miss the noble prize,
The sad defeat-will make you wise;
Defeat itself when thus employed,
Is happiness to be enjoyed.

So extended is the view from the summit of the Texas Peak of Otter that it necessarily embraces a considerable portion of country in a south western direction that

will never be worth cultivating, and within these limits mere are wet and marshy prairies, that teem with poisonous reptiles, and swarm with insects of every variety of and noying powers, and wo be to the weary traveler and his jaded horse if he be found there of a summer's day compelled to inhale the poisonous vapors.

Again there are localities in sight here that are infested with worse than savage white men, many of whom are fugitives from justice, and have found an asylum here where legal retributive justice cannot overtake them.— To my mind, beings capable of enjoying the delights of social intercourse could not be doomed to worse punishment than to spend a life among these lawless and depraved wretches, composed as they mostly are, of the most desperate characters from the four quarters of the globe.

Yet among such degraded of God's creatures as congregate here, something useful may be learned, and my own short intercourse among this part of the population of Texas, has convinced me that it is a school that would teach useful lessons to some of our would be wise ones, if it did not lead to improvements in the enacting and administration of our laws, and cause our law givers, Judges and others at the head of affairs, to do what is right in place of what is popular.

In short, there are men in Texas who have been driven there by the vengeance of authority in place of equity and ustice, and by the machinations of worse men than themselves; and in many cases the shock to their feelings and their after intercourse with the vicious have completely undone them; and as a necessary consequence they become useless drones, if not mortal enemies to their own species-a curse to themselves and their country and friends.

It was once my lot to sleep in an Inn where from some casual gathering, I was brought in contact with 14 men,

all of whom acknowledged freely that they had absconded from their native country, and were drawn into Texas as a last resort. This congregation of characters were novel to me, and feeling some interest in their history, I obtained, as I believe, a substantially correct account of all the material facts, which for the information of the reader, I will narrate in the succeding chapter.