egion in the United States
extends over the eastern part of Ohio, Indiana, the southern portion of
Michigan, the southern part of Wisconsin, nearly the whole of the states
of Illinois and Iowa, and the northern portion of Missouri, gradually
passing--in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska--into that arid and
desert region known as The Plains, which lie at the base of the Rocky
Mountains.

The Grand Coteau de Missouri forms a natural boundary to these arid
plains. This vast table-land rises to the height of from 400 to 800
feet above the Missouri. Vegetation is very scanty; the Indian turnip,
however, is common, as is also a species of cactus. No tree or shrub is
seen; and only in the bottoms or in marshes is a rank herbage found.
Across these desert regions the trails of the emigrant bands passing to
the Far West have often been marked: first, in the east, by furniture
and goods abandoned; further west, by the waggons and carts of the
ill-starred travellers; then by the bones of oxen and horses bleaching
on the plain; and, finally, by the graves, and sometimes the unburied
bodies, of the emigrants themselves, the survivors having been compelled
to push onwards with the remnant of their cattle to a more fertile
region, where provender and water could be procured to restore their
well-nigh exhausted strength. Oftentimes they have been attacked by
bands of mounted Indians, whose war-whoop has startled them from their
slumbers at night; and they have been compelled to fight their way
onwards, day after day assailed by their savage and persevering foes.

Civilised man is, however, triumphant at last, and the steam-engine, on
its iron path, now traverses that wild region from east to west at rapid
speed; and the red men, who claim to be lords of the soil, have been
driven back into the more remote wilderness, or compelled to succumb to
the superior power of the invader, in many instances being utterly
exterminated. Still, north and south of that iron line the country
resembles a desert; and the wild Indian roams as of yore, like the Arab
of the East--his hand against every man, and every man's hand against
him.

Among the dangers to which the traveller across the prairie is exposed,
the most fearful is that of fire. The sky is bright overhead; the tall
grass, which has already assumed a yellow tinge from the heat of summer,
waves round him, affording abundant pasture to his steed. Suddenly his
guides rise in thei