Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1919-01-03
THE WEST As GREELEY
SAW It 60 YEARS AGO
Scant Provisions, Lack of Homes,
independence Of People
Struck Famous Editor.

Horace Greeley wrote his impressions
of the cmigrants Journey across the Great
American Plain, as it was then called, IN
1859; and from his account the following
extracts arc taken. They are interesting
just now by way of contrast:
The roads over the Plains, and
farther west, have one striking peculiar
itv-yes. two--a dearth Of latcrals,
and an almost total absence Of houses
along their sides,
"You are travelling a broad, we'll
marked, well-beatcn highway, whereon
you pass, and meet teams, trains, drovcs,
almost hourly, but no crossroads present
|.thcmsclvcs, no hospitablc tavern-s'gn
salutcs you, for hundreds of miles.
There may be half dozen trading poe's
so called, between Fort kearney md Salt
Lake distance of nearly a thousand
mlcs-each trading-post being usually
very poor and empty country store.
Marvellous is it TO see so much active,
moving. vigorous Caucasian humanity
so scantiv provided for the most part,
so utterly unprovldcd with house room
living in such utter independence OF pro-
tectin roofs and floors. Wherever night
ovcrtakcs YOU. YOU unroll your faithful
blan cts, spread them on the dry ground,
crawl into them, and sleep soundly IN the
cool breeze. under the over-archlng sky,
if the rattlcsnakc or the centipede creep
TO your couch for shelter and warmth,
he has usually the polteness to crawl
under Your blankets, not into them; If
the clouds that rolled angrily at dark dis
charge hail and rain as well as thunder and
wind before dawn, you know that theiI
liquid cftluX in summer is rarely or never
copious."
Thousands traverse the Plains, but
few civilized men live on them; those
who STAY here draw their subsistence
mainly from the federal treasury, in con
nection with the army, the mail service
Indian agencies. or something of the sort
For hundreds Of miles there is no fenced
field. no growing grain. no tolerable house
and only the mcrest spot Of garden by
some military post or mail station some
Indian agents lodge.
Il have said that the predominant
impression made on the strangers mind
BY the Plains i ono Of isolation. For days,
If with he mail. for weeks If by any other
conveyance, YOU travel westward, still
westward, with never a mountain
scarcely i hill with never a forest, seldom
tree with rarely a brook or a spring, to
break the monotony af the barren, mainly
grassless, dewless landscape out of which
the sun rises at morning. into which 10
settles at night. And yet. n nearer, n
steadier. more familiar gaze reveals
signs, of life which you At first overlooked.
At intervals the fleet antelope looks
shyly down from the crest of divide,
then is off as on the wings Of the wind.
The gray wolf more rarely surveys you
deliberately from respectful distance.
The paltry cuyota, to which the name of
pralrie-wolf has been given, since 1t has
III It's nature nothing Of the wolf except
his ravcnous appetite. fingers near, safe
in his own worthlessness and your con-
tempt The funny, frisky little prairie
dog-a foreshortened gray squirrel |
barks with amusing alarm at your ap-
proach, then drops into his hole. which
Tor mutual defense and advantage, he
shares with an owl and rattlesnake,
and IS silent till you pass out of his hearing.
Ten or twenty thousand Of these little imps
cover square rod or two with their
holes dug irregularly at distances OF
ten or twelve feet apart
The mail which was but weekly
when crossed Is one of the redeeming
features of he plains. calling into existence