FIRST PROFESSIONAL WORK 59 



forgotten at what point I disembarked from the 

 railroad on nearing my journey's end ; it was an 

 obscure station, and about ten miles from it was 

 the town mentioned. 



This part of Kansas is as characteristic a 

 prairie region as any in the United States. The 

 plain with its sky horizon, with hardly a tree to 

 vary the monotony, and then almost uninterrupted 

 by fences, afforded a new sensation ; nothing I 

 had seen before in the way of landscape was at 

 all like this. The wagon road from the railway 

 station to Mound City was simply a track across 

 the prairie ; and it being early springtime, it is 

 perhaps needless to say that the roads were deep 

 in mud — and such mud! It seemed to me 

 more like tar — black and sticky, it was appar- 

 ently of unfathomable depth. The top soil of the 

 prairie at this point is probably some five or six 

 feet thick, and its abounding fertility made any- 

 thing like artificial manuring wholly unnecessary. 

 The depth of the soil was plainly shown in the 

 wagon-track described. Moreover, this was a 

 well-watered country, and the few trees apparent 

 were coincident with the water-courses. The 

 streams are not very wide, and have generally 

 cut a channel deep into the face of the country. 

 Such channels are like miniature cafions with 

 abrupt banks which hide the stream flowing at 

 the bottom. The fringe of trees along the banks 



