| | 1 | Author: | Thorpe
Thomas Bangs
1815-1878 | Add | | | Title: | The mysteries of the backwoods, or, Sketches of the
Southwest  | | | | 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: | We have wandered over the Louisiana prairies,
our little pony, like an adventurous bark, seemingly
trusting itself imprudently beyond the headlands, a
mere speck, moving among the luxuriant islands of
live oak that here and there sit so quietly upon the
rolling waves of vegetation. Myriads of wild geese
would often rise upon our intrusion, helping out the
fancy of being at sea; but the bounding deer, or
wild cattle, that occasionally resented our presence
and rattled off at break-neck pace, kept us firmly on
the land. In the spring seasons, the prairies are
covered with the choicest flowers, that mix with the
young grass in such profusion as to carpet them
more delicately, and more richly, than in the seraglio
of a sultan. Upon this vegetation innumerable
cattle feed and fatten, until they look pampered, and
their skins glisten like silk in the sun. Apparently
wild as the buffalo, they are all marked and numbered,
and in them consist the wealth of the inhabitant
of the prairie. It is easy to imagine that herdsmen
of such immense fields live a wild and free life;
ever on horseback, like the Arabs, they have no
fear save when out of the saddle, and nature has
kindly provided a “steed” that boasts of no particular
blood, that may be called the “yankee” of his
kind, because it never tires, never loses its energy,
and makes a living and grows fat, where all else
of its species would starve. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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