On March 23rd I left Houston, and reached Oyster Creek in the evening. Our road lay over an open prairie, with occasional clumps of trees, which, from their breaking the flatness and uniformity of the land horizon, are called "islands." We passed many large and shallow water-holes, or little lakes, the principal cause of fevers and agues in prairie settlements. These lakes were Crowded with flocks of wild-geese and ducks, and there were some cranes. We also passed large herds of deer. The owner of the settlement at which we stopped spoke highly of the fertility of his land. In the first year, by merely scraping up the soil, he had obtained 50 bushels of maize corn per acre. The land cultivated for cotton had been very productive. It is not merely more fertile than the ordinary land of the United States, but the bowls of the cotton-plants burst earlier in the year, and the seasons are more favourable for gathering the crop.

At a distance of a few miles from Oyster Creek we reached the River Brazos. It was at this time low, the water of a reddish colour, running beneath deep and precipitous banks of red clay and sand, and the current strong and rapid. Bales of cotton are taken down this river ; but I doubt if, at any time of the year, steamboats can ascend far up it from the sea.

On the W. side of the Brazos, at a short distance, we reached Richmond, apparently a thriving settlement. Crossing an open prairie, we came to the San Bernard, a small stream, which we easily forded. Lower down than where we crossed it are some fertile cane-lands. When these tracts are cleared the cane is burnt down, and the maize-seed sown by raking up the ground. As the young shoots of the cane-plants spring up, they are broken down, and the plants die in about two years. A shrub called a peach tree afterwards springs up, and is destroyed in the same manner. The land is then open for the plough.

Beyond the San Bernard the coarse vegetation of the eastern prairies ceased, and the country had the appearance of an extensive and clean pasture. We stopped in the evening at Peach Creek. There were large swamps in the neighbourhood, abounding, as usual, with flocks of wild-fowl. The district is very unhealthy, and even the negroes suffer much from sickness during the autumn.

From Peach Creek we crossed the country, in the language of the residents, to the timber of the Colorado bottom. One of the earliest settlements of the Anglo-Americans in Texas is in this bottom. It is called Egypt; and the land is of great fertility, but the settlers exhibited the prevalence of sickness in their sallow faces and feeble persons. The soil of the bottom is said to be above twenty feet deep. The cotton-seed was at this time being sown. If it is sown much later, the rains of this season are lost; and if much earlier, the plants are exposed to a "norther," which in 1839 blew as late as the first week of April. This wind always causes much injury to young plants, though it rarely continues more than three days at a time.

The river of the Colorado when we reached it (April 1st) was low. It did not differ in its character nor in the appearance of its banks from the Brazos. The growth of timber, chiefly oak, is principally on the E. side of both rivers: in the course I took, it was upwards of five miles in depth from the prairie to the river Colorado on this side, and not a quarter of a mile in depth on the W. side. I was shown some large bones of an animal which had been found in the bed of the river.

The road from the Colorado to Victoria is over a continuation of the same description of flat ground previously traversed, excepting a sandy district some miles in extent between the river Garcite and the town. On the road, we forded the rivers Navidad, the La Vaca (generally called the Labaca), and the pretty river Garcite at a crossing near the ranche of De Leon, one of the first empresarios for the colonisation of the country. The water of these streams was clear.

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Adapted from Thomas Falconer
"Notes on a Journey through Texas and New Mexico, in the Years 1841 and 1842"