66 LOST IN THE PEAIEIE. 



Again taking the railway, I proceeded to Decatur, a station 

 about thirty miles east of Springfield, and drove for a whole 

 day through the prairie country in that neighbourhood. After 

 driving a few miles through the enclosed farms which surround 

 the town, we reached the open unbroken prairie, and turning 

 short off the track on which we had hitherto been driving, we 

 stood across the great plain which stretched out before us. The 

 horses struck without hesitation into the long coarse grass, 

 through which they pushed on with very little inconvenience, 

 although it was in many places higher than their heads. It 

 was not thick, and parted easily before them ; then sweeping 

 under the bottom of our waggon it rose in a continuous wave 

 behind us as we passed along. The surface of the ground was 

 firm and smooth. We had fixed our eye on a grove of timber 

 on the horizon as our guide, and drove on for about an hour in 

 a straight line, as we believed, towards it. But stopping now 

 and then to look at the soil and the vegetation, we found that 

 the grove had disappeared. Without knowing it we must have 

 got into a hollow, so we pressed on. But after two hours' 

 steady driving we could see nothing but the long grass and the 

 endless prairie, which seemed to rise slightly all round us. I 

 advised the driver to fix his eye upon a cloud right ahead of 

 us, the day being calm, and to drive straight for it. Proceed- 

 ing thus, in about half an hour we again caught sight of the 

 grove, still very distant, and the smart young American driver 

 " owned up " that he had lost his way. We had got into a flat 

 prairie about five miles square ; one of the horses stepped a lit- 

 tle quicker than the other, and we had been diligently driving 

 in a circle for the last two hours. We soon struck upon a track 

 which led us towards the rising ground and among some new 

 settlements. 



One man here had entered to an eighty acre lot last spring, 

 had built his house, broken about ten acres and sowed it with 



