Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1872-05-16
The Plains Described.

SHOULD any one of my readers ever be
impelled to visit the prairies, and should
he choose the route OF the Platte (the best,
perhaps, that can be adopted), can as
sure him that he need not think to enter
at once upon the paradise of his imagina-
tion. A dreary preliminary, protracted
crossing of the threshold awaits him be-
fore he finds himself fairly upon the
verge of the Great American DESERT
those barren wastes, the haunts of the
buffalo and the Indian, where the very
shadow of civilization lies a hundred
leagues behind him. The intervening
country, the wide and fertile belt that ex-
tends for several hundred miles beyond
the extreme frontier, will probably answer
tolerably well to his preconceived ideas of
the prairie for this it is from which pic
turesque tourists, painters, poets and nov
elists, who have seldom penetrated far
ther, have derived their conceptions of
the whole region.
If he has painters eye, he may find
his period of probation not wholly void
of interest. The scenery, though tame,
is graceful and pleasing. Here are the
level plains, two wide for the eye to meas
ure; green undulations, like motionlesss
swells of the ocean; abundance of streams,
followed through all their windings by
let him be as enthusiastic as he may, he
will find eaough to dampen his ardor. His
wagons will stick in the mud; his horses
will break loose; harness will give way,
and aXletrees prove unsound. His bed
will be soft one, consisting often of
black mud of the richest consistency. As
for food, he must content himself with
biscuits and salt provisions, for, strange
as it may seem, this tract of country pro-
duces very little game. As he advances,
indeed, he will see mouldering, in the grass
byhis path, the vast antlers of the elk, and
further on the whitened skulls of the buff
falo, once swarming over this now desert
ed region. Perhaps, like US, he may jour-
ney for fortnight and see not so much
as the hoof-print of deer; in the spring,
not even prairie hen is to be had.
Yet, to compensate him for this un-
looked-for deficiency of game, he will
find himself beset with "varmints in
Vulnerable. The wolves will entertain
him with concert at night, and skulk
around him by day, just beyond rife
shot; his horse will step into badger
holes; from every marsh and mud-puddle
will arise the believing, croaking, and
trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely
various in color, shape, and dimensions
A profusion of snakes will glide away
from under his horses feet, or quietly
visit him in his tent at night, while the
pertinacious humming of unnumbered
mosquitoes will Danish sleep from his
eyelids. When thirsty, with long ride
in the scorching sun over some bound
less reach or prairie, he comes at length
to pool of water, and alights to drink,
he discovers a troop of young tad-poles
sporting in the bottom of his cup. Add
to this, that, all the morning, the sun
beats upon him with a sultry, penetrat-
ing heat, and that, with provoking regular
ity, at about feur o'clock in the after
noon, thunderstorm rises and drenches
him to the skin.-FrOm Francis Parknaan's
new Work on " The OREGON TRAIL"