158 REFLECTIONS. 
ries. Viewing them from a snug fire-side, 
they seem crowded with dangers, with labors 
and with sufferings; but once upon them, 
and these appear to vanish—they are soon 
forgotten. 
There is another consideration, which, with 
most men of the Prairies, operates seriously 
against their reconciliation to the habits of 
civilized life. Though they be endowed natu- 
rally with the organs of taste and refinement, 
and though once familiar with the ways and 
practices of civilized communities, yet a long 
absence from such society generally oblite- 
rates from their minds most of those common 
laws of social intercourse, which are so neces- 
sary to the man of the world. The awkward- 
ness and the gaucherics which ignorance of 
their details so often involves, are very trying 
to all men of sensitive temperaments. Con- 
sequently, multitudes rush back to the Prairies, 
merely to escape those criticisms and that 
ridicule, which they know not how to disarm. 
It will hardly be a matter of surprise then, 
when [ add, that this passion for Prairie life, 
how paradoxical soever it may seem, will be 
very apt to lead me upon the Plains again, to 
spread my bed with the mustang and the 
buffalo, under the broad canopy of heaven,— 
there to seek to maintain undisturbed my 
confidence in men, by fraternizing with the 
little prairie dogs and wild colts, and the still 
wilder Indians—the wnconquered Sabeans of 
the Great American Deserts. 
