The Prairie Read Free Page A

of
his race. There were one or two others, of different mould, whose
descriptions must however be referred to the regular course of the
narrative.
    Of the females, there were but two who had arrived at womanhood; though
several white-headed, olive-skinned faces were peering out of the
foremost wagon of the train, with eyes of lively curiosity and
characteristic animation. The elder of the two adults, was the sallow
and wrinkled mother of most of the party, and the younger was a
sprightly, active, girl, of eighteen, who in figure, dress, and mien,
seemed to belong to a station in society several gradations above that
of any one of her visible associates. The second vehicle was covered
with a top of cloth so tightly drawn, as to conceal its contents,
with the nicest care. The remaining wagons were loaded with such rude
furniture and other personal effects, as might be supposed to belong
to one, ready at any moment to change his abode, without reference to
season or distance.
    Perhaps there was little in this train, or in the appearance of its
proprietors, that is not daily to be encountered on the highways of this
changeable and moving country. But the solitary and peculiar scenery,
in which it was so unexpectedly exhibited, gave to the party a marked
character of wildness and adventure.
    In the little valleys, which, in the regular formation of the land,
occurred at every mile of their progress, the view was bounded, on two
of the sides, by the gradual and low elevations, which gave name to
the description of prairie we have mentioned; while on the others,
the meagre prospect ran off in long, narrow, barren perspectives, but
slightly relieved by a pitiful show of coarse, though somewhat luxuriant
vegetation. From the summits of the swells, the eye became fatigued with
the sameness and chilling dreariness of the landscape. The earth was not
unlike the Ocean, when its restless waters are heaving heavily, after
the agitation and fury of the tempest have begun to lessen. There
was the same waving and regular surface, the same absence of foreign
objects, and the same boundless extent to the view. Indeed so very
striking was the resemblance between the water and the land, that,
however much the geologist might sneer at so simple a theory, it would
have been difficult for a poet not to have felt, that the formation of
the one had been produced by the subsiding dominion of the other. Here
and there a tall tree rose out of the bottoms, stretching its naked
branches abroad, like some solitary vessel; and, to strengthen the
delusion, far in the distance, appeared two or three rounded thickets,
looming in the misty horizon like islands resting on the waters. It
is unnecessary to warn the practised reader, that the sameness of
the surface, and the low stands of the spectators, exaggerated the
distances; but, as swell appeared after swell, and island succeeded
island, there was a disheartening assurance that long, and seemingly
interminable, tracts of territory must be passed, before the wishes of
the humblest agriculturist could be realised.
    Still, the leader of the emigrants steadily pursued his way, with no
other guide than the sun, turning his back resolutely on the abodes
of civilisation, and plunging, at each step, more deeply if not
irretrievably, into the haunts of the barbarous and savage occupants of
the country. As the day drew nigher to a close, however, his mind, which
was, perhaps, incapable of maturing any connected system of forethought,
beyond that which related to the interests of the present moment,
became, in some slight degree, troubled with the care of providing for
the wants of the hours of darkness.
    On reaching the crest of a swell that was a little higher than the usual
elevations, he lingered a minute, and cast a half curious eye, on either
hand, in quest of those well known signs, which might indicate a place,
where the three grand requisites of water, fuel and fodder were to be
obtained in conjunction.
    It would