The Kansas herald of freedom., 1857-08-29
Westward.

1t is something of marvel that, though
God arrayed His glorious courier, the Sun,
| in aruaor, till "far his coming shone," and
bade him westward take his way, man
should only have taken the hint 8 day or
two ago and followed after him.
But the pioneer has become multitude
and the multitude numberiess, and the
drowsy East awaking, seeks the West.
There is but one grand cardinal point 10
day, though the poor ignorant needle IS
slow to learn it.
Like the dawning of morning has this
progress been. The aGenesse," !" q little
while ago, was name to eonjure with;
to eoniure visions of wilderness, and noise
less foot falls and dimmest threads OF trails.
and rifle-netes, and the red light of.camp-
fires among the trees. A little while
since, to set forth thither was good deal
like dying-a piece of business to be dene
solemnly and alone, and when long, duh
intervals of time yawned between the
pioneer of the Genesee and the home he
left behind him.
Those will read these paragraphs who
remember j.. and they are not so very Old
after all.
Then Lake Erie was wonderfully dim IN
the blue distance, and he who had seen IL,
and he who had padded canoe uponlts
waters, was travelled soul, and had tales
to tell. and world of ears to hear them
By-and-by somebody set foot upon
Gods great meadows, that were waiting to
be fenced, and plow-share cut the SOD as
gaily as ships bows the parting water,
and smoke went up from new hearths.
and songs from new homes.
Now and then, some silly Canute OF
other would throw chain upon the ad-
vancing wave, and utter his edict of "thus
far and no, and the disobedient tide
would wash him imprudently up, and
tumble him nearer sunset, with the word
farther lust finished on his lips
And this last has been in our day and
here: in the time when round the lakes
fioated the craft to our port and over the
enameledsod came the prairie sehooners.
Then the East stretched forth Its hand
to the West, with brace OF iron bars
therein. and the West looked away TO the
Mississippi. The old coaches numbered
and lurched, and went down and over,
and under sometimes; then they waited
at the terminus of the pioneer railroad, the
Galena. ten miles out, fifteen miles out,
twenty miles out, where, like the Wnite
| Nile. it seemed to lose Itself upon the
prairie, and had depot and passenger
house on a grand scale-a depot and
passenger honse with blue root, and cir-
cular walls precisely as large as the hon.
zon q glorious ventilation and abundance
of room, and all that. And the Cenutes
came about again, with their ciialns ana
their injunctions, but the Sun, that 6Llgnt
exempiar. kept on his way to the West
and the roads followed after, and the world
brought up the rear. -,
And we here, away here, on the hlther
/ shore of Lake eMichigan-caught ourselves
looking on beyond for strangely enough,
/ we are no longer at the West-the West
has slipped by almost without our knowing
it-slipped by on the railroad, and by the
rivers. and in the canyas-covered wslns,
and on foot with packs, and even IN wheel
barrows. But the West was all abroad,
unfenced and unclaimed, and cheap as
the great Uncle of us all, in the generosity
of his heart could make it.
! A while ago, as We waited here, wender-
ing who would come next, and how many
more there were to come, the note OF a
"Bugien came 10 us faint and iow--a
Nebraska Bugle, and very strange It
sounded to us from away in the wilder
ness. on the frontier, the outer rim OF the
West.
| And the West There it is dimly
beckoning in the distanee.-caeago Jour
nal