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Show 130 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 noisiest way. Here a congregation of keen- visaged worthies were gathered around a loquacious land- speculator, beneath the shadow of a sign- post, listening to an eloquent holding-forth upon the merits, relative and distinctive, of prairie land and bluff; there a cute- looking personage, with a twinkle of the eye and sanctimoniousness of phiz, was vending his wares by the token of a flaunting strip of red baize; while lusty viragoes, with infants at the breast, were battering their passage through the throng, crowing over a " bargain " on which the " cute " pedler had cleared not more than cent, per cent. And then there were sober men and men not sober; individuals half seas over and whole seas [ 102] over, all in as merry trim as well might be; while, as a sort of presiding genius over the bacchanal, a worthy wag, tipsy as a satyr, in a long calico gown, was prancing through the multitude, with infinite importance, on the skeleton of an unhappy horse, which, between nicking and docking, a spavined limb and a spectral eye, looked the veritable genius of misery. The cause of all this commotion appeared to be neither more nor less than a redoubted " monkey show," which had wound its way over the mountains into the regions of the distant West, and reared its dingy canvass upon the smooth sward of the prairie. It was a spectacle by no means to be slighted, and " divers came from afar " to behold its wonders. For nothing, perhaps, have foreign tourists in our country ridiculed us more justly than for that pomposity of nomenclature which we have delighted to apply to die thousand and one towns and villages sprinkled over our maps and our land; instance whereof this same renowned representative of the Celestial Empire concerning which I have been writing. Its brevity is its sole commendation; for as to the taste or appropriateness of such a name for such a place, to say naught of the euphony, there's none. And then, |