Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-12-07
FAR o1rr Upon THE PRAIRIE.

B. F. T., in the Chicago journal, gives
the following graphic sketch Of the dis
solving views to be seen from a flying
railroad train on a Western prairie:
When the train strikes out from the
wooded bluffs and the ravines Of the
Des Moines upon the broad prairie, and
YOU see the grass rank and strong, now
~ripening "with the flowers that grow
between" grass not very long ago tram
pied by the Lords great herds, and never
burdened with any semblance of harvest
but the swaths of red fire, you feel that
even by railroad you have escaped from
the a~rtiice of society, and begin to
think about 'leather stockings and a
saddle of venison. You have got out
of the realm of white clover, that Chris
tian grass of human homesteads, for
though n of Cooper's novels has set a
clover field a ~blossoming in On utter
wilderness, yet it is n phenomenon never
witnessed anywhere else. The prairie
is not rs rough as you find it farther
West. There is less of q heavy sea on.
You keep in the center Of a flying hori-
ION of about twenty miles in diameter.
The sun shines, but there is O golden
haze in the air. The light, reflected
from distant points, gives you illuslve
lakes that you never near, but that all
al once yanish-"sparkled, exhaled and
gone to heaven The ripening grasses
of various species growing tremendously
together, give you the russets that
brighten into yellow and deepen into
red, presenting Il scene as gay as a
| painted atlas. Little hillOoks, crested
with tall, yellow flowers, dOtthe prairie
| like the knobbed door of Il money vault.
| They are the work Of those fellows in
! striped jackets-the gophers. The sky
| line for miles is unbroken, and the tall
grass seems to rustic against the blue
around the edges of the world. At last
a small object is discerned far out at
| YOUR right. 1t has four slim legs and
backed like a camel. Beside it is n
| small cigar box about the color of a
| wasp's nest. The one is deserted stage
station, and the other a wild barn-to-
wit: Il small haystack on four stills.
Clever, isn't it2 When the horses eat
up the roof, it is Spring. But the old
| route is abandoned, and the lonely OBJ
| iects look rs dismal as the fragments OF
a wreck at sea. You think how wild
this landscape, by and by, when at the
| sound of the trumpets of March, the gay
| old storms room along these plains
| tossing the air full of shrouds that never
were woven, plotting out the trails and
| making II clean white world in n night.
Looking about you in the car Mt last,
you discover that the people have
| changed az much as thelandscape.
| The finer evidences of a higher civili-
cation have vanished; the lady with the
fitting hoop that passed along the aisle
Yesterday, fairly hattened into an inter.
lection, and resembling n quaint letter
| Or with the back Of a woman's head
| and neck curiously stretched nj the TOP
of it has gone. The man who donned n
new silk hat to travel in has given out.
| The boy that stood up and pulled a
screaming ACCORDION by the tail till ev-
erybody thought the law against "cru-
city to animals" was a dead letter, is
missing. The couple that came on
board this morning hand in hand, like
the Babes in the Woods, he peppermint
| ish and conscious, she red and ribbon
ish, slipped off together when nobody
saw them. The fragrance of night
blooming Ccreus and p%atchouli has fad
ed away. The women arc fewer, the
men franker and rougher. Yonder sits
a young lawyer and his family, bound
for Dacota. 1t is not present ease he
considers, but the far future-the day
when that small, fat fellow, in short
breeches, clsmbering about his knee
like a young bear cub, shall face him
even-eyed and be o man. The young
father is wise; he will grow with the
young State. Here are men bound for
the mines of silver and gold, for noun
tain peaks and distant forts, for all wild
and PARKWAY regions"