98 THE BEEF BONANZA. 



fringed with trees, flowing down its centre, and here 

 and there an island covered with dense forest; little 

 green valleys that conduct silvery streams toward their 

 ocean home ; distant hills, with bonnets blue, a glorious 

 canopy of bright and balmy skies overspreading the 

 whole. What scene could be more sublime ? And 

 such was the North Loup as I saw it a few years ago. 

 At one point for fifteen miles I could look up the 

 valley, and the prospect was unbroken, except by fields 

 of golden grain and green waving corn. High bluffs 

 and deep ravines filled with timber flanked the wide 

 valley, while every two or three miles streams came 

 leaping from the hills, meandered fantastically across 

 the valley, and plunged into the broad river. No 

 sweeter or more picturesque landscape ever was pre- 

 sented to the vision of a painter than the North Loup, 

 the loveliest valley of the Plains. There were no 

 cataracts, geysers, or glaciers, but thousands of patches 

 of green earth, terraced by the hand of nature more 

 beautiful than art could possibly have made them ; quiet 

 vales, through which rivulets flowed on forever in 

 shade and sunlight ; groves by the side of crystal pools ; 

 and hazy, golden days nine months out of every twelve 

 in the year. 



It was of this very country Bayard Taylor wrote : 

 " I am more than ever struck with the great difference 

 between the Great West region and the country east of 

 the Mississippi. There is none of the wearisome mo- 

 notony of the level plains, as in Illinois, or the swampy 

 tracts, as in Indiana or Ohio. The wide, billowy 

 green, dotted all over with golden islands of harvests ; 



