“To southward, beyond prairies threaded by the crystal waters of the rivers San Marcos and Guadalupe, I see San Antonio, that old town filled with memories of heroic deeds. The Alamo, treasured by my people, still stands on the plaza once dyed by the blood of Travis and his men. But how the gallant St. Denis would stare if he could come riding up and look from the brow of his favorite hill into the valley he loved! The village has become a great city. The streets are alive with traffic, handsome houses line the river-banks almost to the old Missions of Concepcion and San José. The United States army post is there as of old, with the stars and stripes proudly waving over its fine buildings. “To east and southeastward are Goliad and Gonzales, sacred in the pages of Texas history; and the river La Vaca, up which La Salle and his men sailed to build ill-fated Fort St. Louis; and the San Jacinto, washing the reedy edge of the famous battle-ground. There are Houston and Columbia, whose streets in the early days were trod by the fathers of the Republic. There is Nacogdoches; and there is the Old San Antonio Road, which is still a traveled highway; and many a town which played its part in the stirring scenes of past times. “Northward and westward lies the newer Texas with thriving cities, such as Dallas and Fort Worth, Sherman and Denison; and Waco on the site where half a century ago stood the village of the music-loving Wacoes. “A wonderful network of railroads binds all these towns and cities together—a network which has been woven as if by magic. In 1852 the _Sidney Sherman_, the first locomotive engine west of the Mississippi River, ran out of Harrisburg on a short stretch of railroad. Now there are nine thousand miles of railroad in the state. “Every year vast fields of grain lie golden and ripe for the harvest, where a short time ago plover and partridge hid in the prairie grass. Along the coast the rich plantations of sugar cane wave and rustle in the breeze, and the smoke of the sugarhouses at grinding-time is black against the sky. [Illustration: Ashbel Smith.] “In Stephen F. Austin’s day there were little patches of cotton about the cabin doors of the settlers. To-day Texas grows one-third of the cotton raised in the world. No fleece so white, no stalks so weighted with bursting bolls, no fiber so strong and yet so delicate, as that of the cotton of Texas. “I see,” the Genie might continue, “I see orchards of fruit trees, and vegetable gardens, and rose bowers, making green and glad the face of the country. “I see at Galveston and Sabine Pass the largest ships now sailing with ease, where in 1863 the _Westfield_ and the _Clifton_ grounded in mud or on a sand-bar. “A mighty bulwark, sprung up as if by magic, stretches its arms around the Island City and guards it from any fury of the sea.