blast is called, rushes over Texas. The
temperature perhaps may fall sixteen degrees
in not so many minutes; men hurry on their
wrappers, horses and cattle scamper to the
nearest shelter, and, on the unsheltered plains
of the coast, perish in great numbers. In doors,
settlers defy the blast with roaring fires in
their log-huts, and make of the norther,
which blows for three days, an excuse for a
complete cessation of all business. In no
other respect is nature inhospitable on the
Texan soil, and so amply are such drawbacks
counterbalanced by the bounty with which
good gifts are showered on the land, that a
traveller through the states of America
looking for virgin earth on which to plant a
home and thrive could scarcely choose but
stop when he reached Texas and take root
there, if he looked only for such advantages
as land, water, and air can furnish.

To the German nobles and princes who
had formed in the year eighteen hundred and
forty-two the Mainzer Adels Verein there
came some speculators from America, sellers
of land, who gave glowing accounts of the
fertility of Texas, and distinctly turned the
thoughts of the Verein in that direction.
President of the Verein was the Prince of
Leiningen, half-brother to her Majesty; its
director was Count Castel. Among its thirty
or more noble members were Prince Frederick
of Prussia, the Duke of Coburg-Gotha,
and Prince Solms of Braunfels, an intimate
friend of Prince Albert, with whom he was
educated at Bonn. The members of this
association were pleased with the anticipation
of great possible results from a well- organised
colonisation of a part of Texas by the
Germans. There might arise a distinct German
dependency in the New World. There might
be established a new market for free cotton
and a new check to the growth of slavery,
The politicians of Texas were at that time
coquetting with the topic of an English
protectorate for the purpose of bringing about
more speedily the annexation they desired;
and so, from a combination of motives it is
said, that a contract was formed between the
Mainzer Adels Verein and Lord Palmerston
on the part of the English government, by
which one party agreed to place ten thousand
German families in Texas, and the other
agreed to give armed protection to the
colony.

In the year eighteen hundred and forty-
three Count Waldeck was sent to the
proposed field of enterprise as an agent of the
association of nobles; but he went no farther
than to secure for himself a slave plantation
near the coast. He was dismissed, and it
was in the year following that the Verein
obtained a charter from the Duke of Nassau
and began more active operations. Prince
Solms of Braunfels was sent out to Texas as
commissioner, and poor Germans were
invited to emigrate, on condition that each
adult paid one hundred and twenty dollars
for a free passage and forty acres of land, and
that each family paid twice the sum for a
free passage and a double grant. The
association undertook to provide loghouses, stock,
and tools at fair prices, and to construct
public buildings and roads for the settlements.

In the meantime Prince Solms, an amiable
but not a wise man, was ruining the entire
enterprise by buying at second-hand a wilderness
of which he knew nothing except from
the glowing report of the speculators who
sold it and him. He did this when he should
have secured a direct and fair grant from the
legislature of the state. The land bought by
the Prince lay "in the heart of a savage
country, hundreds of miles beyond the
remotest settlement, between the Upper
Colorado and the great desert plains—a region, to
this day, almost uninhabited."

The account we are here giving of the
German colonists in Texas, and whatever we
may say of Texas in the course of this narration,
we take from a very profitable book by
Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, who being
already known to the public by his travels
in the seaboard slave states, now publishes
an account of a journey through Texas. This
journey was one taken not in public conveyances
by the high-roads but on horseback in
the way of independent exploration. Mr.
Olmsted and his companions dropped in
upon Texans of all sorts wherever they might
find them, chatted with them, and took simple
notes of all they saw and heard in the log-
cabins and upon the highways; they saw
the town life and the country life, traversing
slowly the entire region in its length and
breadth. Mr. Olmsted's book is a complete
picture of the land and of the society that
lives by its abundant wealth. Slavery has
been introduced into Texas, and without
argument or declamation, by a simple narrative
of what was to be seen from day to day,
it is shown by the traveller how the slave
system presses as a curse upon the country.
In the midst of the slave state is set a colony,
consisting now of five and thirty thousand
Germans, who live by free labour and offer
many points of contrast to the rest of the
community. The story of these Germans is
the most emphatic illustration of the lesson
taught by the whole study of Texas and its
history. To that, accordingly, we now return.

Prince Solms of Braunfels having been
duped into the purchase of a bit of desert
for the emigrants, marched at their head
towards the promised land. The number of
the subscribers whom the Verein first sent
out was one hundred and eighty. They
marched on through much wilderness,
harassed by Indians, and became disheartened
when they reached the place where the
Comal flows into the Guadaloupe. By the
advice of a naturalist who was among them,
Mr. Lindheimer, there they remained, and
laid out the town of New Braunfels, now