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Speaking of slaves, who after all comprised about one in three of the total Texas population, Olmstead writes at length on that "perculiar institution". Plainly an abolistionist, bias is to be expected, but then again to us modern folk it would be pretty hard to gild that particular lily.

To his credit, Olmstead does not dwell on incidences of egregious sadism other than relating the case of a Georgia Planter who would pull a toenail for a first runaway attempt, and two for a second, never having had to have pulled more than a total of three toenails from any one person.

Instead Olmstead describes a sort of banal and by modern lights surreal mediocrity on the part of both master and slave, and is the more credible for it.

But before all that, his vivid description of what it was like to ride an antebellum paddlewheeler down the Mississippi to New Orleans, in the late fall of 1856

The Sultana was an immense vessel, drawing nine feet, and having an interminably long saloon. Loaded to the full her guards, even at rest, were on the exact level of the water, and the least curve of her course, or movement of her living load, sent one of them entirely under. Like the greater number of Western boats I had the fortune to travel upon, some part of her machinery was "out of order".

In this case one of the wheels was injured and must be very gently used. Carrying the mails, and making many landings, this proved a serious detention, and we were more than six days in making the passage from Cairo to New Orleans, which may be made in a little over two.

Little could be added, within the same space, to the steamboat comfort of the Sultana. Ample and well-ventilated state rooms, trained and ready servants, a substantial as well as showy table; at the head of all, officers of dignity and civility. A pleasant relic of French river dominion is the furnishings of red and white wines for public use at dinner.

A second table provides for the higher employees of the boat and for the passengers who have found themselves de trop at the first. A third is set for the White servants and children, and a fourth for blacks.

Among the last, several ladies made their appearance, in whom, only when thus pointed out, could you observe any slight indication of colored ancestry. No wise man, therefore, should fall blindly in love, on board these steamers, till this fourth table has been carefully examined.

In a voyage so long you forget the attitude of expectation usual on a steamboat, and adapt your habits to the new kind of life. It is not, after all, very different from life at a watering-place. Day after day you sit down to the same table with the same company, slightly changing its faces as guests come and go.

You meet the same persons in your walks upon the galleries and in evening conversation. New acquaintances are picked up and welcomed to more or less intimacy. Groups form common interests, and from groups cliques and social envies.

The life, especially in the tame Mississippi scenery, is monotonous, but is barely long enough to get tedious, and the monotony is of a kind you are not sorry to experience, once in a lifetime. With long sleeps necessitated by nocturnal interruptions from landings and woodings, long meals, long up and down walks, and long conversations, daily interlarded with letters and books, time passes, and space.

With the Southern passengers, books are a small resource, cards fill every vacuum. Several times we were expostulated with, and by several persons inquiries were made, with deep curiosity, as to how the deuce we possibly managed to pass our time, always refusing to join in a game of poker, which was the only comprehensible method of steaming along.

The card parties, begun after tea, frequently broke up only at dawn of day, and loud and vehement disputes, as to this or that, occupied not only the players, but, per force, the adjacent sleepers. Much money was lost and won with more or less gaiety or bitterness, and whatever pigeons were on board were duly plucked and left to shiver.

Birdwatcher