| From the Houston Telegraph |
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| August 21, 1861 |
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| Letter from Rebel |
| Saluria, Augusta 10th 1861 |
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| Ed. Telegraph, |
| Upon leaving your city,
probably the most thriving one in the State, I took the Tap road {Houston
Tap & Brazoria RR} and went rolling over the prairie with
that unconcern which a speed of twelve miles the hour usually
produces. Being a little curious I tried to derive from my fellow
passengers the reason of the application of the word "tap"
as applied to the Houston and Columbia R. R.; with just what success
you can judge when I inform you that a clerical gentleman assured me
that, "the name was so applied from the fact that this road
tapped and brought to Houston the rich trade of the Brazos, which had
previously gone to Galveston." Of course I believed this, as
indeed I generally do what these Rev. Doctors tell me, and simply
responded that Houston well deserved this trade from the great
exertions she had made to reach it. |
| This road is not one of the
best over which I have traveled, as it partakes a little too strongly
of the nature of the prairies through which it runs, which, in
themselves considered, are decidedly hogwallowish. In fact I almost
feel like making the same remark about this piece of "rail"
that Mrs. Jackson did to the General at New Orleans, when, taking a
slice of pine apple for the first time in her life, this estimable
lady exclaimed: "General, this bangs punkin!" I might say
with equal propriety that the Tap Road bangs hogwallow. To say the
least, it gives one a foretaste of the pleasurable sensations
experienced in riding an ox cart over our coast prairies. It is
needless, I suppose, to say that we ran off the track, no once, but
twice, and thereby got behind time a couple or four hours. I take
pleasure in adding that the work of righting up, renovating and
ballasting this road is being pushed forward with great vigor, so that
it promises to be the best road in the State within the next sixty
days. |
| ***** |
| Rebel |
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