Complete Prose Works
in constant view by day, draped in their violet haze, mountain tops
innumerable. Yes, I fell in love with Denver, and even felt a wish to
spend my declining and dying days there.
I TURN SOUTH AND THEN EAST AGAIN
Leave Denver at 8 A.M. by the Rio Grande RR. going south. Mountains
constantly in sight in the apparently near distance, veil'd slightly,
but still clear and very grand--their cones, colors, sides, distinct
against the sky--hundreds, it seem'd thousands, interminable necklaces
of them, their tops and slopes hazed more or less slightly in that
blue-gray, under the autumn sun, for over a hundred miles--the most
spiritual show of objective Nature I ever beheld, or ever thought
possible. Occasionally the light strengthens, making a contrast of
yellow-tinged silver on one side, with dark and shaded gray on the
other. I took a long look at Pike's peak, and was a little disappointed.
(I suppose I had expected something stunning.) Our view over plains
to the left stretches amply, with corrals here and there, the frequent
cactus and wild sage, and herds of cattle feeding. Thus about 120
miles to Pueblo. At that town we board the comfortable and well-equipt
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RR., now striking east.
UNFULFILLED WANTS--THE ARKANSAS RIVER
I had wanted to go to the Yellowstone river region--wanted specially to
see the National Park, and the geysers and the "hoodoo" or goblin land
of that country; indeed, hesitated a little at Pueblo, the turning
point--wanted to thread the Veta pass--wanted to go over the Santa
Fe trail away southwestward to New Mexico--but turn'd and set my face
eastward--leaving behind me whetting glimpse-tastes of southeastern
Colorado, Pueblo, Bald mountain, the Spanish peaks, Sangre de Christos,
Mile-Shoe-curve (which my veteran friend on the locomotive told me was
"the boss railroad curve of the universe,") fort Garland on the plains,
Veta, and the three great peaks of the Sierra Blancas. The Arkansas
river plays quite a part in the whole of this region--I see it, or
its high-cut rocky northern shore, for miles, and cross and recross it
frequently, as it winds and squirms like a snake. The plains vary here
even more than usual--sometimes a long sterile stretch of scores of
miles--then green, fertile and grassy, an equal length. Some very large
herds of sheep. (One wants new words in writing about these plains, and
all the inland American West--the terms, _far, large, vast_, &c., are
insufficient.)
A SILENT LITTLE FOLLOWER-THE COREOPSIS
Here I must say a word about a little follower, present even now before
my eyes. I have been accompanied on my whole journey from Barnegat to
Pike's peak by a pleasant floricultural friend, or rather millions of
friends--nothing more or less than a hardy little yellow five-petal'd
September and October wild-flower, growing I think everywhere in the
middle and northern United States. I had seen it on the Hudson and over
Long Island, and along the banks of the Delaware and through New Jersey,
(as years ago up the Connecticut, and one fall by Lake Champlain.) This
trip it follow'd me regularly, with its slender stem and eyes of gold,
from Cape May to the Kaw valley, and so through the cañons and to these
plains. In Missouri I saw immense fields all bright with it. Toward
western Illinois I woke up one morning in the sleeper and the first
thing when I drew the curtain of my berth and look'd out was its pretty
countenance and bending neck.
_Sept. 25th_.--Early morning--still going east after we leave Sterling,
Kansas, where I stopp'd a day and night. The sun up about half an hour;
nothing can be fresher or more beautiful than this time, this region. I
see quite a field of my yellow flower in full bloom. At intervals dots
of nice two-story houses, as we ride swiftly by. Over the immense area,
flat as a floor, visible for twenty miles in every direction in the
clear air, a prevalence of autumn-drab and reddish-tawny herbage--sparse
stacks of hay and enclosures, breaking the landscape--as we rumble by,
flocks of prairie-hens starting up. Between Sterling and Florence a
fine country. (Remembrances to E. L., my old-young soldier friend of war
times, and his wife and boy at S.)
THE PRAIRIES AND GREAT PLAINS IN POETRY
(_After traveling Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado_) Grand as
is the thought that doubtless the child is already born who will see
a hundred millions of people, the most prosperous and advanc'd of the
world, inhabiting these Prairies, the great Plains, and the valley of
the Mississippi, I could not help thinking it would be grander still
to see all those inimitable American areas fused in the alembic of
a perfect poem, or other esthetic work, entirely western, fresh and
limitless--altogether our own, without a trace or taste of Europe's
soil, reminiscence, technical letter or spirit. My days and nights, as I
travel here--what an exhilaration!--not the air alone, and the sense
of vastness, but every local sight and feature. Everywhere something
characteristic--the cactuses, pinks, buffalo grass, wild sage--the
receding perspective, and the far circle-line of the horizon all times
of day, especially forenoon--the clear, pure, cool, rarefied nutriment
for the lungs, previously quite unknown--the black patches and streaks
left by surface-conflagrations--the deep-plough'd furrow of the
"fire-guard"--the slanting snow-racks built all along to shield
the railroad from winter drifts--the prairie-dogs and the herds
of antelope--the curious "dry rivers"--occasionally a "dug-out" or
corral--Fort Riley and Fort Wallace--those towns of the northern plains,
(like ships on the sea,) Eagle-Tail, Coyoté, Cheyenne, Agate, Monotony,
Kit Carson--with ever the ant-hill and the buffalo-wallow--ever the
herds of cattle and the cow-boys ("cow-punchers") to me a strangely
interesting class, bright-eyed as hawks, with their swarthy complexions
and their broad-brimm'd hats--apparently always on horseback, with loose
arms slightly raised and swinging as they ride.
THE SPANISH PEAKS--EVENING ON THE PLAINS
Between Pueblo and Bent's fort, southward, in a clear afternoon
sun-spell I catch exceptionally good glimpses of the Spanish peaks.
We are in southeastern Colorado--pass immense herds of cattle as our
first-class locomotive rushes us along--two or three times crossing
the Arkansas, which we follow many miles, and of which river I get fine
views, sometimes for quite a distance, its stony, upright, not very
high, palisade banks, and then its muddy flats. We pass Fort Lyon--lots
of adobie houses--limitless pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those
herds of cattle--in due time the declining sun in the west--a sky of
limpid pearl over all--and so evening on the great plains. A calm,
pensive, boundless landscape--the perpendicular rocks of the north
Arkansas, hued in twilight--a thin line of violet on the southwestern
horizon--the palpable coolness and slight aroma--a belated cow-boy with
some unruly member of his herd--an emigrant wagon toiling yet a little
further, the horses slow and tired--two men, apparently father and son,
jogging along on foot--and around all the indescribable _chiaroscuro_
and sentiment, (profounder than anything at sea,) athwart these endless
wilds.
AMERICA'S CHARACTERISTIC LANDSCAPE
Speaking generally as to the capacity and sure future destiny of that
plain and prairie area (larger than any European kingdom) it is the
inexhaustible land of wheat, maize, wool, flax, coal, iron, beef and
pork, butter and cheese, apples and grapes--land of ten million virgin
farms--to the eye at present wild and unproductive--yet experts say
that upon it when irrigated may easily be grown enough wheat to feed the
world. Then as to scenery (giving my own thought and feeling,) while
I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara falls, the upper
Yellowstone and the like, afford the greatest natural shows, I am not
so sure but the Prairies and the Plains, while less stunning at first
sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the
rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape.
Indeed through the whole of this journey, with all its shows and
varieties, what most impress'd me, and will longest remain with me, are
these same prairies. Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes,
to all my senses--the esthetic one most of all--they silently and
broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime.
EARTH'S MOST IMPORTANT STREAM
The valley of the Mississippi river and its tributaries, (this stream
and its adjuncts involve a big part of the question,) comprehends more
than twelve hundred thousand square miles, the greater part prairies. It
is by far the most important stream on the globe, and would seem to have
been marked out by design, slow-flowing from north to south, through
a dozen climates, all fitted for man's healthy occupancy, its outlet
unfrozen all the year, and its line forming a safe, cheap continental
avenue for commerce and passage from the north temperate to the torrid
zone. Not even the mighty Amazon (though larger in volume) on its line
of east and west--not the Nile in Africa, nor the Danube in Europe, nor
the three great rivers of China, compare with it. Only the Mediterranean
sea has play'd some such part in history, and all through the past,
as the Mississippi is destined to play in the future. By its demesnes,
water'd and welded by its branches, the Missouri, the Ohio, the
Arkansas, the Red, the Yazoo, the St. Francis and others, it already
compacts twenty-five millions of people, not merely the most peaceful
and money-making, but the most restless and warlike on earth. Its
valley, or reach, is rapidly concentrating the political power of the
American Union. One almost thinks it _is_ the Union--or soon will be.
Take it out, with its radiations, and what would be left? From the car
windows through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, or stopping some days along
the Topeka and Santa Fe road, in southern Kansas, and indeed wherever
I went, hundreds and thousands of miles through this region, my eyes
feasted on primitive and rich meadows, some of them partially inhabited,
but far, immensely far more untouch'd, unbroken--and much of it more
lovely and fertile in its unplough'd innocence than the fair and
valuable fields of New York's, Pennsylvania's, Maryland's or Virginia's
richest farms.
PRAIRIE ANALOGIES--THE TREE QUESTION
The word Prairie is French, and means literally meadow. The cosmical
analogies of our North American plains are the Steppes of Asia, the
Pampas and Llanos of South America, and perhaps the Saharas of Africa.
Some think the plains have been originally lake-beds; others attribute
the absence of forests to the fires that almost annually sweep over
them--(the cause, in vulgar estimation, of Indian summer.) The tree
question will soon become a grave one. Although the Atlantic slope,
the Rocky mountain region, and the southern portion of the Mississippi
valley, are well wooded, there are here stretches of hundreds and
thousands of miles where either not a tree grows, or often useless
destruction has prevail'd; and the matter of the cultivation and spread
of forests may well be press'd upon thinkers who look to the coming
generations of the prairie States.
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY LITERATURE
Lying by one rainy day in Missouri to rest after quite a long
exploration--first trying a big volume I found there of "Milton, Young,
Gray, Beattie and Collins," but giving it up for a bad job--enjoying
however for awhile, as often before, the reading of Walter Scott's
poems, "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and so on--I stopp'd and
laid down the book, and ponder'd the thought of a poetry that should in