The Texas quote of the day was written in 1888 about events that transpired 22 years before, in 1866. As usual, any mistakes in the transcription are mine.

 The Texas quote of the day was written in 1888 about events that transpired 22 years before, in 1866. As usual, any mistakes in the transcription are mine. 

"On December 1st [1866] I had a refreshing bath in the San Antonio river, and the next day came in sight of the city, lying in a shallow basin, surrounded by a low range of hills, far up on the side of which a ruin was pointed out as the remains of one of the old Jesuit missions, established by those pioneers of Christianity fifty years before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Entering the city of San Antonio, we felt at once that we were in a strange country, or at least among a strange people. The town is one of the oldest in the Union, contemporary with San Augustine and Santa Fe, and its old cathedral church of San Philip de Bexar dates away back, having been built by the generation immediately succeeding the men who were fellow adventurers with Cortez. The streets seemed narrow but clean, and the more modern portion filled with handsome business houses and lighted with gas. The town is well watered, and many of the streets had little streams or ditches on each side filled with clear running water, fed by, or tributary to, the San Antonio and San Pedro rivers, both of which meander through it, and are crossed by several bridges.

There are three plazas or public squares, the Main plaza, the Military plaza and the Alamo plaza, on the 'latter of which stood the ruins of what may be considered, or should be, the Mecca of Texas, the historic building known as the Alamo. Here Crockett, Bonham, Travis, Bowie and some three hundred other heroes fought the legions of Santa Anna for days, finally retreating and fighting from room to room; at last, after their ammunition was exhausted, in a hand-to-hand contest, with their rifles clubbed, the last one fell, but Texas was free.

To the everlasting disgrace of Texas, no noble monument marks the spot; in fact, when I first saw it, it was part of a livery stable.

The plazas were often filled with immense Chihuahua wagons, all the way from Monterey and San Luis Potosi, many of them with fourteen and eighteen mules hitched four abreast, and the shops filled with Mexican saddles and Navajo blankets and other Mexican commodities.

At this time San Antonio was far from any railroad, and enjoyed an immense trade from Mexico, all of it transacted by these great wagon trains. The circulating medium was entirely in silver dollars; when our greenbacks were presented, the merchant invariably discounted them, all prices being in coin; this discounting of paper money, by the way, was kept up in Texas long after specie payments had been resumed elsewhere.

The weather, although in December, had up to this time been very beautiful — just such balmy days and delightful nights as back home we were accustomed to in the late summer and early fall; but during this first night at San Antonio I experienced my first "norther." These " cold waves," which are more or less prevalent from November until April, constitute most of the really cold weather felt in this latitude. Of course, Texas is an empire in extent, and when you speak of such or such a peculiarity of soil or climate, in referring to Texas, you must indicate the portion of the State, for in Northern Texas, at Jacksboro, I have seen the mercury 13° below zero more than once. It is the suddenness with which the norther comes up (or down), and the consequent rapid fall in the mercury, often from 80° or 85° to the freezing point, or several degrees below it, that makes them so piercing. Generally before the advent of one it is rather more still and sultry than usual; as evening approaches, a dull, dark bank begins to rise on the northern horizon, and about sundown the " cold wave " comes, often accompanied by a wind with a velocity of thirty to forty miles an hour or more. Their force is usually expended in about twelve hours, but sometimes they continue to blow for two or even three days.

The climate of the part of Texas so far seen by me had taken first hold on my mind as approaching the ideal. Many of the early impressions, written down for these sketches at the time, subsequent experience and observation have caused me to modify, but the following verbatim entry in my diary, written in December, 1866, on the climate, I have never yet seen fit to alter:

"Beyond doubt, the balmy and glorious climate, the gorgeous skies, the glowing sunsets, the pure and bracing atmosphere, the splendid landscapes, cannot be surpassed on the continent; and in the near future, when the railroad shall have traversed its immense distances, and the six-shooter and Bowie shall have been replaced by the plow and schoolhouse, no portion of our vast heritage will present so many attractions to the emigrant, the tourist, or the invalid, as the Empire State of the Southwest."