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Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 285 of the sun was rapidly wheeling down the western heavens; my tired horse could advance through the heavy grass no faster than a walk; the pale bluffs, apparently but a few miles distant, seemed receding like an ignis fatuus as I approached them; and there lay the swampy forest to ford, and the " terrible Mississippi" beyond to ferry, before I could hope for food or a resting- place. In simple verity, I began to meditate upon the yielding character of prairie- grass for a couch. And yet, of such surpassing loveliness was the scene spread out around me, that I seemed hardly to realize a situation disagreeable enough, but from which my thoughts were constantly wandering. The grasses and flowering wild- plants of the Mamelle Prairie are far- famed for their exquisite brilliancy of hue and gracefulness of form. Among the flowers my eye detected a species unlike to any I had yet met with, and which seemed indigenous only here. Its fairy- formed corolla [ 28] was of a bright enamelled crimson, which, in the depths of the dark herbage, glowed like a living coal. How eloquently did this little flower bespeak the being and attributes of its Maker. Ah I " There is religion far a flower; Mountains and oceans, planets, suns, and systems, Bear not the impress of Almighty power In characters more legible than those Which he has written on the tiniest flower Whose light bell bends beneath the dewdrop's weight" One who has never looked upon the Western prairie in the pride of its blushing bloom can hardly conceive the surpassing loveliness of its summer flora; and, if the idea is not easy to conceive, still less is it so to convey. The autumn flowers in their richness I have not yet beheld; and in the early days of June, when I first stood upon the prairies, the beauteous sisterhood of spring were all in their graves; and the sweet springtime of the year it is when the |