November 1845 in Galveston
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Fortunately, the innkeeper left a lamp burning on the table all night, which provided the necessary light for our wanderings. My friends in the old homeland would perhaps wonder, when they read this report, about the cold which we endure in the room of a dwelling building here in Texas, a land where no severe winters prevail; but it serves the purpose to report that the climate here in this land is subject to very quick changes and because of this, to the people seems very sharp and unpleasant, especially the immigrating Europeans. It is nothing unusual, that there are several days in a row of very warm summer weather whereby not infrequently a warmth of from 20 to 24 degrees is produced; but suddenly the wind turns out of the north, which usually comes as a storm, and very quickly drives away the prevailing warmth down to the freezing point, wherewith the quick change of climate becomes very sharp and unpleasant for people. The current winter, according to reports of the citizens of Galveston, is very enduring and severe, so that people who have already lived here in this country for many years cannot remember a similar one. Yes, we verified the truth of these reports through our own experience and with our own eyes, as there was really frozen ice and the cold rose to 7 degrees, which seemed to be something unheard of for the local areas. Also, the houses here are not built so solid and firm as in the European cities, either of brick or strong girding, but rather constructed of only very light, completely weak framework and the walls covered with one inch boards, the roof covered with shingles through which the strong and sharp northers penetrate, causes the people found in them, if they are not sitting around a heated iron stove or around a burning chimney fire and warming themselves, to tremble and to chatter their teeth violently. Unfortunately, in the room where we spent the night, there was neither a stove nor a chimney by which we could drive the cold out of our limbs. Usually this norther as well as generally the cold only endures two or at the most three days, whereupon it ceases, the wind changes to another direction and the pleasant warmth follows again, which lasts a few days, |
