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Show 22 WESTERN WILDS. for in the larger towns at least the traffic was, and is, open and unrestricted. Drawing near the Missouri I found the country rising into long ridges and abrupt swells of land, the sloughs disappearing for the most part,, and clear streams again taking their place. The grasshoppers had come in to desolate the few settlements, and for two days' travel I heard little but complaints and forebodings. Their method that season was peculiar. They traveled along a denned track, generally not more than a mile wide ; but over that area they covered the ground, while the air seemed full of white specks, the creatures flying as high as one could see. Before them were green prairies, fields rich in clover, corn and wheat ; behind them blackness, desolation and mourning. But while I studied them a strong wind sprang up from the east, and in a few hours they disappeared and were seen no more ; not, however, until they had destroyed about half the crops in three counties. Whence come they, and whither do they go? Science and unlearned conjecture seem equally at fault. It is certain that they can only breed on high and dry ridges and plains, and a wet season is fatal to them. An old and abandoned road is their favorite hatching ground. For the most part they confine their ravages to the border, but occasionally they sweep in destructive columns far down toward the Mississippi. A few years later I was destined to have an unprofitable experience with them in Kansas, after the State had been free from them seven years, and the least hopeful believed that their day had passed forever. From this region I turned south- west, and the last of June crossed the Missouri to the metropolis of Nebraska. Omaha was then the city of promise. Whether that promise has been fulfilled is a matter of doubt with many who were then sanguine. The rivalry with Council Bluffs, on the Iowa side, was intense and amusing. On the wr est bank, one heard contemptuous allusions to " the Bluffs," " East Omaha," and " Milkville." On the other side there were withering sarcasms about " Bilkville," " Traintown," " Omahawgs," " Omahens," and " The U. P. Station across the river." The editors on one side, according to their statements, made their " libelous contemporaries" on the other " squirm" almost daily. To the stranger, who had no possessions in either place, it was a free comedy. The " Omahawgs," with cheerful disregard of grammar, spoke of their city as the " initial terminus" ( in English, " beginning- end ") of the Union Pacific Railroad, and future entrepot of the California, China and Australia trade. It did look reasonable that they should build up a great city, and cheering proph-ecies were abundant. Somehow thev have been slow of fulfillment. A |