BORDER-PRAIRIES AND INDIANS. 16 



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their animals and complete the needful arrangements, prior to undertaking 

 the toilsome and dangerous journey before them. 



The scenery of this neighborhood is truly delightful. It seems indeed 

 like one Nature's favored spots, where Flora presides in all her regal 

 splendor, and with the fragrance of wild flowers, perfumes the breath of 

 spring and lades the summer breeze with willing incense ; — now, sport- 

 ing beside her fountains and revelling in her dales, — then, smiling from 

 her hill-tops, or luxurating beneath her groves. 



I shall never forget the pleasing sensations produced by my first visit to 

 the border-prairies. It was in the month of June, soon alter my arrival at 

 Westport. The day was clear and beautiful. A gentle shower the pre- 

 ceding night had purified the atmosphere, and the laughing flowerets, newly 

 invigorated from the nectarine draught, seemed to vie with each other in 

 the exhalation of their sweetest odors. The blushing strawberry, scarce 

 yet divested of its rich burden of fruit, kissed my every step. The butter- 

 cup, tulip, pink, violet, and daisy, with a variety of other beauties, unknown 

 to the choicest collections of civilized life, on every side captivated the eye 

 and delighted the fancy. 



The ground was clothed with luxuriant herbage. The grass, where 

 left uncropped by grazing herds of cattle and horses, had attained a sur- 

 prising growth. The landscape brought within the scope of vision a most 

 magnificent prospect. The groves, clad in their gayest foliage and nodding 

 to the wind, ever and anon, crowned the gentle acclivities or reared their 

 heads from the valleys, as if planted by the hand of art to point the way- 

 farer to Elysian retreats. The gushing fountains, softly breathing their 

 untaught melody, before and on either hand, at short intervals, greeted the 

 ear and tempted the taste. The lark, linnet, and martin, uniting with other 

 feathered songsters, poured forth heir sweetest strains in one grand con- 

 cert, and made the air vocal with their warblings ; and the brown-plumed 

 grouse, witless of the approach of man, till dangerously near, would here 

 and there emerge wellnigh from under foot; and whiz through the air 

 with almost lightning speed, leaving me half frightened at her unlooked 

 for presence and sudden exit. Hither and yon, truant bands of horses and 

 cattle, from the less inviting pastures of the settlements, were seen in the 

 distance, cropping the choice herbage before them, or gambolling in all the 

 pride of native freedom. 



Amid such scenes I delight to wander, and often, at this late day, will 

 my thoughts return, unbidden, to converse with them anew. There is a 

 charm in the loneliness — an enchantment in the solitude — a witching 

 variety in the sameness, that must ever impress the traveller, when, for 

 the first time, he enters within the confines of the great western prairies. 



One thing further and I will have done with this digression. Connected 

 with the foregoing, it may not be deemed amiss to say something in relation 

 to the Indian tribes inhabiting the territory adjacent to tiiis common camp- 

 ing-place. The nearest native settlement is some twelve miles distant, and 

 belongs to the Shawnees. This nation numbers in all fourteen or fifteen 

 hundred men, women and children. Their immediate neio-hbors are the 

 Delawares and Wyandotts, — the former claiming a population of eleven 

 hundred, and the latter, three or four hundred. Many connected with 

 these tribes outstrip the nearer whites, in point of civilization and refine-^' 



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