Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1872-05-29
Whole No. 1904
THE PLAINS.

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
/ ad0pted), / can assure him that he
need not think to enter at once upon
the paradise of his imagination. A
| dreary preliminary, prOtracted cross
| ing of the threshold awaits him before
he finds himself fairly upon the verge
I of the Great American Desert u
/ those barreh wastes, the haunts Of the
| buffalo and Indian, where the very
shadow of civilization lies a hundred
leagues behind him. The interven-
ing country, the wild and and fertile
belt that extends for several hundred
miles beyond the extreme frontier,
I will probably answer tOlerably well
/ to his preconeeived ideas of the
I prairie; for this it is from which pic
turesque tourists, painters, poets and
nOvellsts, who have seldom pene-
trated farther, have derived their
conceptions of the whole region.
If he has a 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, too wide
for the eye to measure; green undula-
tions, like mOtiOnless swells of the
ocean; abundance of streams, followed
through all their windings by lines Of
woods and scattered groves. But let
him be as enthusiastic a. he may, he
will find enough 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 a 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 ad-
vance, indeed, he will see mouldefing
in the grass by his path the vast ant
lers of the elk, and further on the
whitened skulls of the buffalo, once
swarming over this now deserted
region. Perhaps, like US, he may
journey for fortnight and see not so
much as the footprint of deer; in
the spring, not even prairie hen is
to be had
Yet, to compensate him fer this un-
looked for deficiency of game, he will
find himself beset with " varmints
innumerable. The wolves will entel-
tain him with a concert at night, and
skulk around him by day, just beyond
rifle shot; his horse will step into
badger-holes; from every marsh and
mud puddle will arise the believing,
cruaking, and trilling of legions of
frogs, infinitely various in color
shape, and dimensions. A profusion,
of snakes will glide awsy from under
his horses feet, or quietly visit him
st night, while the pertinacious hum
ming of unnumbered mosquitoes will
Danish sleep from his eyelids. When
thirsty, with long ride in the scorch-
ing sun over some boundless reach or
prairie, he comes at length to q pool
Of water, and aiights to drink, he dis
covers 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,
penetrating heat, and that, with pro-
vOking regularity, at about four
o'clock in the afternoon, thunder
storm rises and drenches him to
the skin.-FrOD9 Francis PorkmdR's
"OrcgOn Trail"