Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1899-09-14
missed seeing Lincoln, the home 8

missed seeing Lincoln, the home of
W. ]. Bryan. .55s}8.
To describe the route through
Nebraska would be but to repeat re-
marks concerning the Western coun-
try previously passed through, ex-
cept that the lands aud crops did
not appear to be quite SO good, and
trees somewhat more rare. In fact
at times not a tree could be seen in
any direstion. Ma@3E
Aftor McCook was passed crops
began to dwindle and instead graz
ing lands appeared. Before the
Colorado line was reached the view
presented was that of vast, tree
less plain, covered with short grass,
broken here and there by high, bar
ron ridges and divided into large
tracts by wire fence. Herds of cat
tie were seen grazing, closely punched
for protection from flies. On many
of the ranches were rude cabins and
stables. Occasionally big cowboy
and saddle might be seen on q very
small pony, which joEgoa along
briskly. At Intervals OF several
miles small streams were crossed.
+ Along the banks vegetation was
more luxuriant, and the largest herds
were there. Occasionally drove of
horses came into view, and if close
to the road they soampered away.
Soon stray punches of sage brush and
cactus dotted tho prairie as we went
westward. Cactus is familiar to
most people. Sage is a scrubby,
knotty scrub which grows from few
inches to three or four feet high in
thick, segregated punches, very much
like the sage grown here for spicing,
and has the same grayish appear
ancc.
After crossing into Colorado these
features became pronounced, and we
were in the great American desert,
and no mistake. Villages of prairie
dogs dotted the desert here and
there. The earth removed from their
burrows caused resemblance to an
exaggerated ant village. The frisky
little prairie dogs, like the average
citizen wanted to see the train pass,
and stood on their hind feet, "iust
like folks" as the facetious men,
Der of our party remarked. This alb
original citizen of the prairie is gen.
orally of brownish color and about
the size of an ordinary gray squirrel.
TO my mind it resembles the ground
squirrel more than it does the dog.
Although the altitude was now
high and the land dry, short grass
still grew among the sage and cactus
and occasional punches of cattle and
horses were nibbling away at it.
Some small huts of adobe or sun
dried bricks seemed to be the only
human habitation.
ONLY ONE SAD FEATURE.
One sad feature suggested itself to
my mind, and that was that the poets
of that section, if there are such, are
deprived of that faithful old stand
by, "the growing shades of eventidc,"
for there is nothing there to cast the
aforesaid shadows. Neither does the
"babbling brook" babble, for it is not
there.
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon
we got our first glimpse of the
Rockies - those mystic mountains
midst whose Businesses schoolboy
imagination had wandered and exe-
cuted prodigies of valor in sanguinary
I encounters with the red mar and the
grizzly, and from whose depths gold
galore had been drawn and squan-
dered in building other air castles.
There they were, the famous noun
tains Of which I had read and
speculated so much, peak after peak
outlined against the western sky in
blue and silent majesty. The sun
shone quite warmly upon us, but the
eloquent member Of the party, with
q graceful gesture, exclaimed: "See
the spotlcss SHOWS clinging to the
III