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© Маевская И. С., адаптация текста, упражнения, комментарии, словарь

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On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar, the noonday sun is shedding his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness. Under the golden light appears a group of objects.

The objects in question are easily identified – even at a great distance. They are waggons. Slowly crawling across the savannah, it could scarce be told that they are in motion.

There’re ten large waggons, each hauled by eight mules; their contents are: plenteous provisions, articles of costly furniture, live stock in the shape of coloured women and children; the groups of black and yellow bondsmen, walking alongside; the light travelling carriage in the lead, drawn by a span of Kentucky mules, and driven by a black Jehu.

train

In the cortège that accompanies it, riding at its head, is the planter himself – Woodley Poindexter – a tall thin man of fifty, with a slightly sallowish complexion, and aspect proudly severe. He is simply though not inexpensively dressed. His features are shaded by a broad-brimmed hat.

Two horsemen are riding alongside – one on his right, the other on the left – a stripling scarce twenty, and a young man six or seven years older. The former is his son – a youth, whose open cheerful countenance contrasts, not only with the severe aspect of his father, but with the somewhat sinister features on the other side, and which belong to his cousin.

There is another horseman riding near. The keel-coloured “cowhide” clutched in his right hand, and flirted with such evident skill, proclaim him the overseer.

carriole

The emigrating party is from the “coast” of the Mississippi – from Louisiana. The planter is not himself a native of this State. Woodley Poindexter is a grand sugar planter of the South; one of the highest of his class.