THE WESTEBN PKAIEIE8. 73 



grass is relieved by flowers of brilliant hue, scattered 

 over the wild expanse. Streams are glistening in the 

 sunlight, their banks fringed with elms, the drooping, 

 spray-like branches resting on the willow tops, that seem 

 to be springing from the crystal Hood. 



" The mild waves bathe the woods, the woods the wave o'erskade." 

 You can mark their course for miles by the green bor- 

 dering. The distant outline of the hills looks like a dream 

 of land when in mid-ocean. A herd of deer are quietly 

 grazing, apparently so near, from the clearness of the air, 

 that you mark every line in their graceful forms. A soli- 

 tary bald eagle is wheeling in circles over your head. 



The few fleecy clouds that are sailing along so majesti- 

 cally before the western breeze, throw deep shadows that 

 chase each other adown the slope and across the valleys. 

 You are lost in the immensity of space, the earth ap- 

 pearing as boundless as the sky. 



But you have not seen half the beauties of the prairie, 

 unless so fortunate as to behold a sunset ; and to fully 

 appreciate this you must be alone. 



When looking for land on the waters that empty into 

 the Missouri, I frequently got so far from habitations that 

 I was obliged to spend the night on the prairie. My horse 

 shackled and turned out to graze, I have sat and watched 

 the sun as it lit up the western horizon in a blaze of glory. 

 Sometimes large masses of cloud would lie in huge frag- 

 ments, their edges at first only gilded, when, as the sun 

 sank, the dense foreground became gradually lighted up, 

 till the whole was of such a gorgeous hue that the eye 

 was pained looking directly at it. The reflected light, 

 mellowed as it fell, gave the whole prairie the semblance 

 of being no longer of earth, but happy hunting grounds 

 lit up by the shadow of God. 



In this dreamy, golden air, things could be seen nearly 

 as distinct as in the blaze of noon-tide, only everything 



