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Show 284 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 said to have bewailed as bitterly as, in anticipation, he had bewailed the loss of his head." For the particulars of this anecdote I am no voucher; I give the tale as told me; but as it doubtless has its origin in fact, it may have suggested to the author of " The Prairie9' that amusing character, " Obed Battius, ED.," especially as the scene of that interesting tale lies in a neighbouring region. 1" It was a sultry afternoon when I left St. Charles. The road for some miles along the bottom runs parallel with the river, until, ascending a slight elevation, the traveller is on the prairie. Upon this road I had not proceeded many miles before I came fully to the conclusion, that the route I was then pursuing would never conduct me and my horse to the town of Grafton, Illinois, the point of my destination. In this idea I was soon confirmed by a half-breed whom I chanced to meet. Receiving a few general instructions, therefore, touching my route, all of which I had quite forgotten ten minutes after, I pushed forth into the pathless prairie, and was soon in its centre, almost buried, with my horse beneath me, in the monstrous vegetation. [ 27] Between the parallel rolls of the prairie, the size of the weeds and undergrowth was stupendous; and the vegetation heaved in masses heavily back and forth in the wind, as if for years it had flourished on in rank, undisturbed luxuriance. Directly before me, along the northern horizon, rose the white cliffs of the Mississippi, which, as they went up to the sheer height, in some places, of several hundred feet, presented a most mountain- like aspect as viewed over the level surface of the plain. Towards a dim column of smoke which curled lazily upward among these cliffs did I now direct my course. The broad disk l n Obed Battius, M. D., is a character in James Fenimore Cooper's novel. The Prairie ( 1826).- ED. |