OCR Text |
Show TO FORT KEARNEY. 5 the emigrant, as well as some he does not require. Canned fruits and vegetables are conspicuously displayed upon the shelves, making perhaps a greater show for the same cost than other articles the establishment contains, and generally no inconsiderable quantity of " Hostetter's Bitters" a form in which the emigrant may obtain very poor whiskey at a very high price occupy prominent places upon the shelves also. In addition to Stations and Ranches there are also several trading towns or villages between Leaven-worth and Kearney. Seneca, about six days journey ( as we travelled) from Leavenworth, is quite a thriving and enter prising place. I found the cunning Yankee trader at Seneca as well as every where else where a store is kept on the plains, and paid for my dealing with one by being badly cheated in some cigars. The country over which we passed from Leavenwortb to Kearney presents a beautiful, regularly undulating sur face, and is watered at convenient distances for daily marches, by numerous streams. The rolling prairies of Kansas differ widely from the broad plains ofIllinois. The reader who has only seen the latter level can form but a poor idea of the beauty and grandure of the former. One who has sailed over the ocean during a calm the day after a storm, and has observed the gentle elevations and depressions of its surface, without a ripple upon the wa ter, and can imagine a vast extent of country, extending far away to the horizon all around, as smooth as the sea, and with the same regular undulations of its surface but magni fied a thousand times, can . brm some idea of the vastness and beauty of the country over which we journeyed from Leavenworth to Kearney. The atmosphere is clear and rarified, and objects can be seen a long distance. The mirage about the horizon adds increasing beauty to the scenery. When observing eleva tion after elevation far away in the distance, until the last little hill seems to support the cloudy dome, we could see reflected on the sky the appearance of a beautiful silvery lake, with its islands and its trees. To one unaccustomed |