buffalo skins at the front of our tents. There certainly is a charm in
this wild sort of life, which wins upon people the more they practise
it; nor can it be wondered at: our wants are in reality so few and so
easily satisfied, without the restraint of form and ceremony. How
often, in my wanderings, have I felt the truth of Shakespeare's lines in
"As You Like It."

"Now, my co-mates and partners in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam--
The seasons' difference."

On the fourth day we descended, crossed the wide prairie, and arrived at
the Fond du Lac, where we again fell in with the Fox river, which runs
through the Winnebago lake. The roads through the forests had been very
bad, and the men and horses showed signs of fatigue; but we had now
passed through all the thickly wooded country, and had entered into the
prairie country, extending to Fort Winnebago, and which was beautiful
beyond concoction. Its features alone can be described; but its effects
can only be felt by being seen. The prairies here are not very large,
seldom being above six or seven miles in length or breadth; generally
speaking, they lie in gentle undulating flats, and the ridges and hills
between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak
openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about
as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park
scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the
care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes
the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an
undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it is then
called rolling prairie.

Often, when I looked down upon some fifteen or twenty thousand acres of
these prairies, full of rich grass, without one animal, tame or wild, to
be seen, I would fancy what thousands of cattle will, in a few years, be
luxuriating in those pastures, which, since the herds of buffalo have
retreated from them, are now useless, and throwing up each year a fresh
crop, to seed and to die unheeded.

On our way we had fallen in with a young Frenchman, who had purchased
some land at Fond du Lac, and was proceeding there in company with an
American, whom he had hired to settle on it. I now parted compan