CROSS TIMBERS. 79 
» After marching three miles, we came to a house nestled in 
a clump of trees, in the open prairie. 
We found, after making inquiries here, how Bsc dis- 
tances are on these plains. 
The man had never been: beyond his house, in the direction 
we were travelling, and in reply to our inquiry, how far it was 
to the timber, which was in sight, and where we expected to 
join Captain“Marcy, he said, “about three miles,” and truly it 
did not seem farther, but it was eight miles, two hours’ travel 
before we reached the outskirts, and three miles farther we 
found the Captain encamped in a very cozy skirting of timber 
by the roadside. 
The eye is deceived quite as much on the Sia as on the 
water; the long stretches of prairie, although undulating, pre- 
_sent no object so prominent as the belt of timber which bounds 
them, so that the eye rests at once upon this, skipping over 
the intermediate space and shortening the distance just in 
proportion as the ground is level or broken. 
These Cross Timbers are a very singular growth. The 
one we had now entered is called the Lower Cross Timbers, 
and is about six miles wide; then eighteen miles from the 
outer edge of this one, we should enter the Upper and larger. 
They extend almost due north and south, from the Canadian 
to the Brazos. The timber is a short, stunted oak, not grow- 
- ing in a continuous forest, but interspersed with open glades, 
plateaus, and vistas of prairie scenery, which give a 7a pic- 
turesque and pleasing variety. 
