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Show KANSAS REVISITED. 443 along the Arkansas, Smoky Hill, and Republican. But when, forced from these sheltered valleys by the winter hunters, the animals tried to pass the cold season on the open plains northward, they froze and starved by millions. The buffalo range is now only one- twelfth what it was in 1830, and about one- third what it was in 1870. Mr. William Payne, a returned surveyor, gave me a most interesting account of that part of Kansas south and west of the Arkansas. Un-less the climate changes materially, this section must long remain un-settled ; in any event it can not sustain a dense population. It is high, dry, fearfully cut up by flint ridges, and gored by rock- walled canons. Northward, it is more gently rolling, and along the Arkansas there is good farming land even to the border of Colorado. In com-pany with Mr. Payne, I journeyed leisurely up Walnut Creek, finding the fertile valley well settled and cultivated. To the right, the land rose into ridges and swells, where dwellings were rare indeed ; this was herding ground in common for the men of the valley. A furrow, run through the prairie sod, constituted a " lawful fence;" and the herds were kept off" the growing crops by boys and women. Here and there was to be seen a horse hitched at the gate, with neat side- saddle tightly strapped ; and, when the feeding cattle drew near the corn, a tall and graceful Kansas girl would bounce into the saddle, and go galloping up the slope, cracking a little whip, and calling out to the stock in musical English. We voted it a pretty sight, and rode on. ' At Eldorado, in Butler County, we took another rest, in a region where the Kansas winds appear to have done their perfect work on the old settlers. The statement that an old resident " can't talk if the wind stops blowing," is repelled as a slander ; but the wind, or some-thing else, is certainly making rapid changes in the general appearance of the people. They are of florid complexion, leathery aspect, and " clipper built" as to limbs. And this sets me to wondering whether the future American, when our country is all settled, and these rapid changes of population cease, will not fall into permanent types, on the principle of " natural selection and survival of the fittest." There will, perhaps, be the Yankee type : the people north and east of Penn-sylvania, with clear but ruddy skin, rather lean in figure, somewhat severe in aspect, given to grim and sepulchral humor, and with that traditional " blue stripe on the belly." Westward and southward this race will yield gradually to the blue, bilious type, whose central spot will be Cairo, Illinois. They will tend to the pale olive in complex-ion ; will be somewhat languid in their loves and hates till excited, and then fiercely but spasmodically passionate ; they will be darker |