HUNTTTSTO THE BTSON. 85 



AMERICAN BISON. 



who possesses the magic art of converting the reader into a spectator 

 of the scene described. In his Tour on the Prairies, the follow 

 ing panoramic views are presented to us : 



"After a toilsome march of some distance through a country cut 

 up by ravines and brooks, and entangled by thickets, we emerged 

 upon a grand prairie. Here one of the characteristic scenes < f 

 the ' far west' broke upon us, an immense extent of grassy, 

 undulating, or, as it is termed, ' roiling' country, with here and 

 there a clump of trees dimly seen in the distance like a ship at s-a, 

 the landscape deriving sublimity from its vastness and simplicity. 

 To the south-west, on the summit of a hill, was a singular crest of 

 broken rocks, resembling a ruined fortress. It reminded me of the 

 ruin of some Moorish castle crowning a height in the midst of a 

 lonely Spanish landscape. To this hill we gave the name of Cliff 

 Castle. 



"The prairies of these great hunting regions differed, in the 

 character of their vegetation, from those through which I had 

 hitnerto passed. Instead of a profusion of tall, flowering plants, 

 and long flaunting grasses, they were covered with a shorter growth 



