h
of hazel and sassafras, jessamine and honey-suckle, and abounding in
grape-vines. These tracts possess springs in abundance. The "islands"
so often alluded to by travellers are most picturesque and beautiful
features in the landscape. They must not be compared to oases, for
they are surrounded by anything but sterility; but they are the
evidence of springs, and generally of a slight rise in the ground, and
the timber upon them is of almost tropical luxuriance. Herds of deer
are feeding in their shade, the murmur of wild bees fills the air, and
the sweet vine-smell invites birds and insects of every brilliant
color. Prairie-chickens are in flocks everywhere, and the approach of
civilization scarcely ever disturbs them. No engine-driver in the
southern part of the State but has often seen deer startled by the
approach of his train, and many tell tales of more ferocious denizens
of the wilds. Buffalo have all long since disappeared; but what times
they must have had in this their paradise, before they went! On the
higher prairies the grass is of a superior quality, and its seed
almost like wheat. On those which are low and humid it grows rank and
tough, and sometimes so high that a man on horseback may pass through
it unobserved. The crowding of vegetation, owing to the over-fertility
of the soil, causes all to tend upward, so that most of the growth is
extra high, rather than spreading in breadth. In the very early
spring, the low grass is interspersed with quantities of violets,
strawberry-blossoms, and other delicate flowers. As the grass grows
taller, flowers of larger size and more brilliant hues diversify it,
till at length the whole is like a flowery forest, but destined to be
burnt over in the autumn, leaving their ashes to help forward the
splendid growth of their successors.

One of the marvels of this marvellous prairiedom, at the present hour,
is the taste and skill displayed in houses and gardens. One fancies a
"settler" in the Western wilds so occupied with thoughts of shelter
and sustenance as hardly to remember that a house must be
perpendicular to be safe, and a garden fenced before it is worth
planting. But every mile of our prairie-flight reminds us, that, where
no time and labor are to be consumed in felling trees and "toting"
logs to mill,--planks and joists, and such like, walking in, by rail,
all ready for the framing,--there is leisure for reflection and choice
as to form; and also, that, where f