In Two Days They Arrived At The Vast Naked Prairie, The Wintry
Aspect Of Which Had Caused Them, In December, To Pause And Turn
Back.
It was now clothed in the early verdure of spring, and
plentifully stocked with game.
Still, when obliged to bivouac on
its bare surface, without any shelter, and by a scanty fire of
dry buffalo dung, they found the night blasts piercing cold. On
one occasion, a herd of buffalo straying near their evening camp,
they killed three of them merely for their hides, wherewith to
make a shelter for the night.
They continued on for upwards of a hundred miles; with vast
prairies extending before them as they advanced; sometimes
diversified by undulating hills, but destitute of trees. In one
place they saw a gang of sixty-five wild horses, but as to the
buffaloes, they seemed absolutely to cover the country. Wild
geese abounded, and they passed extensive swamps that were alive
with innumerable flocks of water-fowl, among which were a few
swans, but an endless variety of ducks.
The river continued a winding course to the east-north-east,
nearly a mile in width, but too shallow to float even an empty
canoe. The country spread out into a vast level plain, bounded by
the horizon alone, excepting to the north, where a line of hills
seemed like a long promontory stretching into the bosom of the
ocean. The dreary sameness of the prairie wastes began to grow
extremely irksome. The travellers longed for the sight of a
forest, or grove, or single tree, to break the level uniformity,
and began to notice every object that gave reason to hope they
were drawing towards the end of this weary wilderness.
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