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Show 288 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 XXV " There's music in the forest leaves When summer winds are there, And in the laugh of forest girls That braid their sunny hair." IT AFT W 1 " The forests are around him in their pride, The green savannas, and the mighty waves; And isles of flowers, bright floating o'er the tide That images the fairy world it laves." HncaMB. THERE is one feature of the Mamelle Prairie, besides its eminent beauty and its profusion of flowering plants, which distinguishes it from every other with which I have met. I allude to the almost perfect uniformity of its surface. There is little of that undulating, wavelike slope and swell which characterizes the peculiar species of surface called prairie. With the exception of a few lakes, abounding with aquatic plants and birds, and those broad furrows traversing the plain, apparently ancient beds of the rivers, the surface appears smooth as a lawn. This circumstance goes far to corroborate the idea of alluvial origin. And thus it was that, lost in a mazy labyrinth of grass and flowers, I wandered on over the smooth soil of die prairie, quite regardless of the whereabout my steps were conducting me. The sun was just going down when my horse entered a slight footpath leading into a point of woodland upon [ 32] the right. This I pursued for some time, heedlessly presuming that it would conduct me to the banks of the river; when, lo! to my surprise, on emerging from the forest, I found myself in the midst of a French village, with its heavy roofs and broad piazzas. Never was the lazy hero of Diedrich Knickerbocker - luckless Rip - more sadly bewildered, after a twenty years' doze |