The Yazoo City Whig and political register. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 183?-1840, 1840-05-01
MISCELLANEOUS.

nFThe columns of the New York Eve
ming Star, have not unfrequently been in
debted to the author of the following truly
beautiful description of Prairie Scenery
with which his eye must have long since be-
come familiar, and every poetic feeling OF
Of his cultivated ernaginatiOn, strongly incl
ted into sympathetic action, from his posi-
ton for more than year past, as Editor of
that excellent democratic wing journal, the
Little Rock, (Arkansas) Star.
N. Y. Foe. Star,
THE PRAIRIE.-One of the most reinar-
kable features in the Weston country, is, as
almost every one knows, the extensive prai-
ries with which the otherwise unbroken
forests are frequently interspersed. To
one unfamiliar with their appearance,
these prairies present an aspect at once plea
sing and peculiar. Their wide extent sprea-
ding out before the eye like the tracless
ocean, the vast expanse occasionally broken
by small clumps of trees, or reaches OF tim
Der extending like peninsulas from the dis
tant forests-the land now perfectly level,
now gentle rolling like the swelling of the
sea after gale, and occasionally rising in
sudden steps, or table-lands, whose expanse
is Cnbroken by the smallest irregularity of
the surface the gay flowers with which it is
detecked in spriIg,and the long grass which
gracefully waves over its plains in summer,
render the prairie one of the most pleasing
objects in nature.
In winter, however, its beauties are ofthe
rougher kind, and raise chiefly from the
feeling of exhilaration incident to its free
and boundiess extent. At this season of
the year, large portions of its surface are
generally blackened from the effects of FIRE;
and in a wintry day, when the winds are
coursing over its uninterrupted expanse, the
prospect is dreary enough.
The guard prairie which extends between
Little Rock and the old Post of Arkansas,
is ninety-six miles in length and varies
much in width. The road is excellent the
whole distance, owing to the level nature
of the ground. 1t is, however, merely a
track, generally passed by horses, and not
always easily distinguished by an inexPeri-
enced eye when the grass is at its fullest
height The sell is not generally consider
ed as very fit for tivation-conseq uently,
there are only three or four houses on the
road, from the commencement to nearly the
end of the prairie.
One Of the most beautiful and attractive
objects that arrest the eye of the traveller
in crossing the Grand Prairie, is the fire.
quent occurrence Of herds of deers, which
will be seen on the edges of the inlsls of
timber, awaiting with appraised heads and
timid eyes the near approach of the horse-
man, when they will suddenly dy, with the
speed Of the wind for the protection Of the
distant forest.
The solitude Of this wide expanse is en-
liTened, too, BY many of the feathered tribe,
who make it their place Of abode. The So
lisary bllzzard Is there to be distinguished,
perched on the bough Of some guarded oak,
which stands far from its brethren Of the
forest, extending its naked arms to the pei
ting Of the storm. F'locks Of wild geese and
turkeys give for their discordant dries from
the plains, and the bear and the wolf roam
unmolested among its tangled grass.
Yet ID the prairie the proper theatre for
that expansion Of mind which gives to man
the true independence Of his character
that noble feeling Of self-reliance which Is
worth more than all the gifts Of fortune.