presto!

Well I had almost forgotten about "Oregon, Ho!" the 1845 newspaper sketch by "St George" that kickstarts the April 1852 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border."  In that April 1852 number, the new matter of the 1845 dragoon expedition to the Rocky Mountains begins with an extensive rewrite of "Oregon, Ho!"

"Oregon, Ho!" is an early progress report in the form of a letter to the editor, originally published in the editorial correspondence of the Washington National Intelligencer, July 15, 1845 and signed, "ST. GEORGE."

"Oregon, Ho!" was reprinted in Littell's Living Age (August 23, 1845): 356-358.

Two early re-printings of "Oregon, Ho!" appeared (with significant deletions of original material) in New York newspapers:

New York Commercial Advertiser, July 18, 1845  (accessible at GenealogyBank)
New York Spectator, July 23, 1845  (GenealogyBank)

In "Oregon, Ho!" St George showily introduces the story of a prairie wedding with this anti-romantic warning:

But there was a wedding last night!  That damsel takes things coolly as they come.  She is a fine girl for a new country.  Beware, ye Suckers [corrected to "seekers" in Littell’s Living Age], after the romantic!  Cry not Eureka! and straightway with bold imagination found a love story with intricate plot of a maid of the mountain, who was wooed and won by a bold horseman of the prairie desert, and, scorning silken dalliance and trifling forms, yielded her hand, possibly, over the arching neck of prancing steed; for ruthlessly I shall wave my wand of truth, and, presto!  the fabric will vanish.
(Oregon, Ho!)

None of this introduction was used in the 1852 revision.  Hmm, wonder if Melville ever had any use for that magic word presto?

Presto! the castle rose; but alas, the roof was hardly on, when the Yankee's patron, having speculated beyond his means, broke all to pieces, and was absolutely unable to pay one "plug" of tobacco in the pound. His failure involved the carpenter, who sailed away from his creditors in the very next ship that touched at the harbour. (Omoo)

 The gash being made, a metamorphosis took place, transcending any related by Ovid. For, presto! the shirt was a coat!—a strange-looking coat, to be sure; of a Quakerish amplitude about the skirts; with an infirm, tumble-down collar; and a clumsy fulness about the wristbands; and white, yea, white as a shroud.  (White-Jacket)

And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it.  (Moby-Dick, chapter 31)

That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.  (Moby-Dick, chapter 93)

thus; in creeps my soft-handed gentlemen; and hey, presto! how comes on the soft cash?"  (Confidence-Man)

Stock-still I stand,

   And him I see

Prying, peeping

   From Beech-Tree;

Crickling, crackling

   Gleefully!

But, affrighted

   By wee sound,

Presto! Vanish—

   Whither Bound? 

(From "The Chipmunk," as printed in Melville's Tales Poems and Other Writings, ed. John Bryant, 556)