s from which picturesque tourists, painters, poets, and novelists, who
have seldom penetrated farther, have derived their conceptions of the
whole region. If he has a painter's eye, he may find his period of
probation not wholly void of interest. The scenery, though tame, is
graceful and pleasing. Here are level plains, too wide for the eye
to measure green undulations, like motionless swells of the ocean;
abundance of streams, followed through all their windings by lines of
woods and scattered groves. But let him be as enthusiastic as he may,
he will find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons will stick in the mud;
his horses will break loose; harness will give way, and axle-trees prove
unsound. His bed will be a soft one, consisting often of black mud,
of the richest consistency. As for food, he must content himself with
biscuit and salt provisions; for strange as it may seem, this tract of
country produces very little game. As he advances, indeed, he will see,
moldering in the grass by his path, the vast antlers of the elk, and
farther on, the whitened skulls of the buffalo, once swarming over this
now deserted region. Perhaps, like us, he may journey for a fortnight,
and see not so much as the hoof-print of a deer; in the spring, not even
a prairie hen is to be had.

Yet, to compensate him for this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he
will find himself beset with "varmints" innumerable. The wolves will
entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day,
just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from
every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and
trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape and
dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide away from under his horse's
feet, or quietly visit him in his tent at night; while the pertinacious
humming of unnumbered mosquitoes will banish sleep from his eyelids.
When thirsty with a long ride in the scorching sun over some boundless
reach of prairie, he comes at length to a pool of water, and alights to
drink, he discovers a troop of young tadpoles sporting in the bottom of
his cup. Add to this, that all the morning the hot sun beats upon him
with sultry, penetrating heat, and that, with provoking regularity, at
about four o'clock in the afternoon, a thunderstorm rises and drenches
him to the skin. Such being the charms of this favored region, the
reader will easily conceive the extent of our gratifica