he appearance of the country.
The name _prairie_ was given to the plains of North America by the
French settlers. It is the French word for meadow. I will describe
some prairie scenes which have particularly struck me. These vast
plains are sometimes flat; sometimes undulated, like the large waves
of the sea; sometimes barren; sometimes covered with flowers and
fruit; and sometimes there is grass growing on them eight or ten feet
high.

_Brian._ I never heard of such high grass as that.

_Hunter._ A prairie on fire is one of the most imposing spectacles you
can imagine. The flame is urged on by the winds, running and spreading
out with swiftness and fury, roaring like a tempest, and driving
before it deer, wolves, horses, and buffaloes, in wild confusion.

_Austin._ How I should like to see a prairie on fire!

_Hunter._ In Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana, and Louisiana, prairies
abound; and the whole State of Illinois is little else than a vast
prairie. From the Falls of the Missouri to St. Louis, a constant
succession of prairie and river scenes, of the most interesting kind,
meet the eye. Here the rich green velvet turf spreads out immeasurably
wide; breaking towards the river into innumerable hills and dales,
bluffs and ravines, where mountain goats and wolves and antelopes and
elks and buffaloes and grizzly bears roam in unrestrained liberty. At
one time, the green bluff slopes easily down to the water's edge;
while, in other places, the ground at the edge of the river presents
to the eye an endless variety of hill and bluff and crag, taking the
shapes of ramparts and ruins, of columns, porticoes, terraces, domes,
towers, citadels and castles; while here and there seems to rise a
solitary spire, which might well pass for the work of human hands. But
the whole scene, varying in colour, and lit up and gilded by the
mid-day sun, speaks to the heart of the spectator, convincing him that
none but an Almighty hand could thus clothe the wilderness with
beauty.

[Illustration]

_Austin._ Brian! Do you not wish now to see the prairies of North
America?

_Brian._ Yes; if I could see them without going among the tomahawks
and scalping-knives.

_Hunter._ I remember one part where the ragged cliffs and cone-like
bluffs, partly washed away by the rains, and partly crumbled down by
the frosts, seemed to be composed of earths of a mineral kind, of clay
of different colours and of red pumice stone. The clay was white,
br