134 EED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



we arrive within a mile or two of Water-mill Creek, 

 when a scene opens upon the right which discloses on 

 the one hand the white houses and cottages of the inha- 

 bitants, with their barns, haystacks, and cattle yards, 

 grouped at short distances from one another, and stretch- 

 ing away in a thin vanishing line to the south ; while on 

 the other hand, a boundless, treeless ocean of grass, seem- 

 ingly a perfect level, meets the horizon on the west. The 

 same kind of scenery, varied only on the left hand as the 

 road approaches or recedes from the farmhouses, on the 

 river banks, or passes near neat and substantial churches, 

 which at almost regular distances intervene, prevails 

 without interruption until within four or five miles of 

 Fort Garry. Here, stretching away, until lost in the 

 western horizon, the belts of wood on the banks of the 

 Assinniboine rise above the general level, while from the 

 Assinniboine toward the north again is an uninterrupted 

 expanse of long waving prairie grass, sprinkled with herds 

 of cattle, and in the fall of the year with clusters of stacks 

 of hay. This is the ordinary aspect of the country com- 

 prising that portion of Eed Eiver Settlement which lies 

 between Water-mill Creek and Fort Garry. Kemove the 

 farmhouses and churches, replacing them on the river 

 banks by forest trees of the largest growth, and the 

 country between Fort Garry and the 49th parallel, as 

 seen along the road to Pembina, a distance of seventy 

 miles, is continually reproduced in its ordinary aspect of 

 sameness and immensity. 



The vast ocean of level prairie which lies to the west 

 of Eed Eiver must be seen in its extraordinary aspects, 

 before it can be rightly valued and understood in refer- 

 ence to its future occupation by an energetic and civilised 

 race, able to improve its vast capabilities and appreciate 

 its marvellous beauties. It must be seen at sunrise, when 



