| | 1 | Author: | Pike
Albert
1809-1891 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Prose sketches and poems  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The world of prairie which lies at a distance of more
than three hundred miles west of the inhabited portions of
the United States, and south of the river Arkansas and its
branches, has been rarely, and parts of it never, trodden
by the foot or beheld by the eye of an Anglo-American.
Rivers rise there in the broad level waste, of which, mighty
though they become in their course, the source is unexplored.
Deserts are there, too barren of grass to support
even the hardy buffalo; and in which water, except in
here and there a hole, is never found. Ranged over by
the Comanches, the Pawnees, the Caiwas, and other
equally wandering, savage and hostile tribes, its very
name is a mystery and a terror. The Pawnees have their
villages entirely north of this part of the country; and
their war parties—always on foot—are seldom to be met
with to the south of the Canadian, except close in upon
the edges of the white and civilized Indian settlements.
Extending on the south to the Rio del Norte, on the north
to a distance unknown, eastwardly to within three or four
hundred miles of the edge of Arkansas Territory, and
westwardly to the Rocky Mountains, is the range of the
Comanches. Abundantly supplied with good horses from
the immense herds of the prairie, they range, at different
times of the year, over the whole of this vast country.
Their war and hunting parties follow the buffalo continually.
In the winter they may be found in the south,
encamped along the Rio del Norte, and under the mountains;
and in the summer on the Canadian, and to the
north of it, and on the Pecos. Sometimes they haunt the
Canadian in the winter, but not so commonly as in the
summer. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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