For League After League A Plain As
Level As A Frozen Lake Was Outspread Beneath Us; Here And There The
Platte, Divided Into A Dozen Threadlike Sluices, Was Traversing It,
And An Occasional Clump Of Wood, Rising In The Midst Like A Shadowy
Island, Relieved The Monotony Of The Waste.
No living thing was
moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted
over the sand and through the rank grass and prickly-pear just at our
feet.
And yet stern and wild associations gave a singular interest
to the view; for here each man lives by the strength of his arm and
the valor of his heart. Here society is reduced to its original
elements, the whole fabric of art and conventionality is struck
rudely to pieces, and men find themselves suddenly brought back to
the wants and resources of their original natures.
We had passed the more toilsome and monotonous part of the journey;
but four hundred miles still intervened between us and Fort Laramie;
and to reach that point cost us the travel of three additional weeks.
During the whole of this time we were passing up the center of a long
narrow sandy plain, reaching like an outstretched belt nearly to the
Rocky Mountains. Two lines of sand-hills, broken often into the
wildest and most fantastic forms, flanked the valley at the distance
of a mile or two on the right and left; while beyond them lay a
barren, trackless waste - The Great American Desert - extending for
hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on the one side, and the Missouri
on the other.
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