AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
231 
sures of wandering were realized. We were all in the 
morning of life, full of health and spirits, on horseback, 
and breathing a most salubrious air, with a boundless hori- 
zon open before us; and shaping our future fortune and 
success in the elastic mould of youthful hope and imagina- 
tion, we could hardly be other than happy. Sometimes 
we saw, scouring away from our path, horses, asses, mules, 
buffaloes, and wolves, in countless multitudes, and we 
took, almost with too much ease to give pleasure in the 
chase, whatever we needed for luxurious subsistence. The 
passage of creeks and brooks across the prairies is mark- 
ed, to the utmost extent of vision, by a fringe of wood and 
countless flowering shrubs. Sometimes we ascended an 
elevation of some height, swelling gently from the plain. 
Here the eye traces, as on an immense map, the formation 
and gradual enlargement of these rivulets, and sees them 
curving their meandering lines to a point of union with 
another of the same kind. The broadened fringe of wood 
indicates the enlargement of the stream, and the eye takes 
in at one glance the gradual formation of rivers. The 
night brought us up on the edge of one of these streams. 
Our beasts are turned loose to stretch themselves on the 
short and tender grass, to feed and repose. The riders 
collect round a fire in the centre. Supper is prepared 
with bread, coffee, and the tenderest parts of the buffalo, 
venison, and other game. The appetite, sharpened by ex- 
ercise on horseback, and by the salubrious air, is devour- 
ing. The story circulates. Past adventures are recount- 
ed, and if they receive something of the colouring of ro- 
mance, it may be traced to feelings that grow out of the 
occasion. The projects and the mode of journeying on 
the morrow are discussed and settled. The fire flickers 
in the midst. The wild horses neigh, and the prairie 
wolveshowl, in the distance. Except the weather threatens 
storm, the tents are not pitched. The temperature of the 
night air is both salutary and delightful. The blankets 
are spread upon the tender grass, and under a canopy of 
the softest blue, decked with all the visible lights of the 
sky. The party sink to a repose, which the exercise of 
the preceding day renders as unbroken and dreamless, as 
that of a grave. I awoke more than once unconscious that 
a moment had elapsed, between the time of my lying- 
down and my rising. 
“ The day before we came in view of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, I saw in the greatest perfection that impressive, and, 
to me, almost sublime spectacle, an immense drove of 
wild horses, for a long time hovering round our path 
across the prairie. I had often seen great numbers of them 
before, mixed with other animals, apparently quiet, and 
grazing like the rest. Here there were thousands un- 
mixed, unemployed: their motions, if such a comparison 
might be allowed, as darting and as wild as those of hum- 
ming-birds on the flowers. The tremendous snorts with 
which the front columns of the phalanx made known 
their approach to us, seemed to be their wild and ener- 
getic way of expressing their pity and disdain for the ser- 
vile lot of our horses, of which they appeared to be taking 
a survey. They were of all colours, mixed, spotted, and 
diversified with every hue, from the brightest white to 
clear and shining black; and of every form and structure, 
from the long and slender racer, to those of firmer limbs 
and heavier mould; and of all ages, from the curvetting 
colt to the range of patriarchal steeds, drawn up in aline, 
and holding their high heads for a survey of us, in the 
rear. Sometimes they curved their necks, and made no 
more progress than just enough to keep pace with our ad- 
vance. Then there was a kind of slow and walking 
minuet, in which they performed various evolutions with 
the precision of the figures of a country dance. Then a 
rapid movement shifted the front to the rear. But still, 
in all their evolutions and movements, like the flight of 
sea-fowl, their lines were regular, and free from all indi- 
cations of confusion. At times a spontaneous and sudden 
movement towards us, almost inspired the apprehension 
of an united attack upon us. After a moment’s advance, 
a snort and a rapid retrograde movement seemed to testify 
their proud estimate of their wild independence. The in- 
finite variety of their rapid movements, their tamperings, 
and manoeuvres, were of such a wild and almost terrific 
character, that it required but a moderate stretch of fancy 
to suppose them the genii of these grassy plains. At one 
period they were formed for an immense depth in front 
of us. A wheel, executed almost with the rapidity of 
thought, presented them hovering on our flanks. Then, 
again, the cloud of dust that enveloped their movements, 
cleared away, and presented them in our rear. They evi- 
dently operated as a great annoyance to the horses and 
mules of our cavalcade. The frighted movements, the in- 
creased indications of fatigue, sufficiently evidenced, with 
their frequent neighings, what unpleasant neighbours they 
considered their wild compatriots to be. So much did our 
horses appear to suffer from fatigue and terror in conse- 
quence of their vicinity, that we were thinking of some 
way in which to drive them off; when on a sudden a pa- 
tient and laborious donkey of the establishment, who ap- 
peared to have regarded all their movements with philo- 
sophic indifference, pricked up his long ears, and gave a 
loudandmostsonorousbray from hisvocal shells. Instantly 
this prodigious multitude, and there were thousands of 
them, took what the Spanish call the “ stompado.” With 
a trampling like the noise of thunder, or still more like 
that of an earthquake, a noise that was absolutely appal- 
