12 THE AMERICAN PRAIRIES. 



trees. Occasionally, the traveller comes upon a shady 

 hollow, watered by pool or stream, where the slopes bloom 

 with shining masses of azaleas, kalmias, rhododendrons, 

 and andromedas. The silence would be oppressive but for 

 the soughing of the wind, or the low howl of the cayeute, 

 or the whirr of passing birds ; and the solitude would be 

 unbroken but for the appearance of herds of deer, bison, 

 and wild horses. At times, in the remote distance, the 

 prairie wolves prowl to and fro in quest of prey ; but the 

 general impression which the scene produces is that of a 

 lonely and abandoned world. Nor will that impression 

 be swept aside for many generations yet to come, though 

 civilization is gradually encroaching on the wilderness, and 

 the locomotive strikes across the tremendous plain on its 

 way from Omaha to San Francisco. 



Prairies, resembling these in their general features, lie 

 to the east and west in Arizona, Texas, California, and 

 some of the Mexican provinces. The vegetation differs, 

 however, according to the peculiar conditions of each 

 region, and the alternations of rainy deluges and periodical 

 droughts become more marked as we journey southward. 

 The herbage, in the long warm summer, often grows so 

 dry that the slightest accident — such as a lighted match 

 flung carelessly away, or the smouldering ashes dropped 

 from a hunter's pipe — will kindle the most terrible con- 

 flagrations ; and the unchecked flames, spreading devour- 

 ingly over wide spaces of open ground, consume trees and 

 shrubs, and burn to death the cattle or wild animals unable 

 to effect their escape. With the crackling, liissing, seeth- 



