130 HILLS AND LAKES. 



farm-house, or green field could be seen; with the 

 great rivers windin', like gigantic serpents, along the 

 deep valleys, and the wooded plains, upon whose 

 majestic waters no ships spread their white sails, or 

 or steamboats puffed their smoke. I've hearn tell of 

 the great prairies, that stretch away from the Missis- 

 sippi to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, that lay 

 spread out there, like great a meadow, thousands of 

 miles around 'em, without a fence or a road crossin' 

 them. Squire, 'twould have been a sight to see those 

 vast wastes, before the foot of the white man had 

 crossed the great Father of Waters, as I've hearn it 

 called, all covered with tall grass, wavin' like an 

 ocean of grain, and reaching out, away and away, 

 hundreds of miles beyond where the eagle, in his 

 highest flight, could see. I should like to have seen 

 those Vast droves of buffalo, fightin', and bellowin', 

 and pursuin', and hustlin' each other, spreadin' out all 

 over the plain like a mighty army of horned beasts ; 

 and then, when some terror seized the herd, how the 

 earth must have shook beneath the thunderin' hoofs 

 of their flying hosts. I should like to have been the 

 first white man that looked upon such a gigantic wil- 

 derness as this country then was, to have come up 



