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Show 1836- 1837I Flagg's Far West 315 trembled in the moonlight The silence and solitude of the prairie was almost startling; and a Herculean figure upon a white horse, as it drew nigh, passed me " on the other side" with a glance of suspicion at my closely-buttoned surtout and muffled mouth, as if to say, " this is too lone a spot to form acquaintance. 91 A few hours - I had crossed the prairie, and was snugly deposited in a pretty little farmhouse in the edge of the grove, with a crusty, surly fellow enough for its master. Springfield, IU. XXVIH " Hee Is a rite gude creetur, and travels all the ground over most faithfully." < lThewebofou^ lifeUofaIningledya^ n, gocKiaIMiiUtogeth( e^.,,- SHAKESFXAU. IT is a trite remark, that few studies are more pleasing to the inquisitive mind than that of the nature of man. But, however this may be, sure it is, few situations in life present greater facilities for watching its developments than that of the ordinary wayfaring traveller. Though I fully agree with Edmund Burke, that " the age of chivalry has passed away," with all its rough virtues and its follies* yet am I convinced that, even in this degenerate era of sophisters, economists, and speculators, when a solitary individual, unconnected with any great movements of the day, throws himself upon his horse, and sallies fearlessly forth upon the arena of the world, whether in quest of adventure or not, he will be quite sure to meet, at least, with some slight " inklings" thereof. A thousand exhibitions of human character will fling themselves athwart his pathway, inconsiderable indeed in themselves, yet which, as days of the year and seconds of the day, go to make up the lineaments of man; and which, from the observation of |