their wrongs. His conversation was most original, showing keen observation and much pleasant humour. He told me, too, of his own life; how he had devoted himself to literature, edited a newspaper, etc.; how he had grown utterly disgusted with civilization, turned misanthrope, sought the forest wilds, and at length become a "trapper." He told me of the habits of the animals he hunted for their skins; of the customs of the Indians, with whom he often lived. With one old chief he had journeyed, and shown him the ocean for the first time; he asked him what was his impression? The chief replied, "It impresses me like a God -it is boundless, it is incomprehensible, it is almighty." In short, Bruin turned out a most valuable travelling companion, and I thanked him for the information he had given me, intimating my intention of publishing my wanderings. He inquired the name of the book. I replied it was not yet christened; but I would give him the name of the author; and I took an envelope from my pocket and handed it to him. He uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Well, this is a 'Roland for an Oliver!' Nothing could have astonished me more than to meet you on the plains of Nebraska. This is a pleasure. Let me shake hands with you."

VOL. II.

2

I placed my hand in the great paw, where it disappeared for ever so long.

"Well," he continued, "many a time, when our three-monthly post used to be brought in, I have burned my midnight oil to read those tender little words of yours. Ah!" he said, "you had better have married a bear than a nobleman."

"Of course, you have heard of a certain individual not being so black as he is painted?" was my remark.

As we went rolling through these boundless. plains of swaying grass, that now seemed to move in ripples, now in great undulating waves of the ocean, he told me that if I closed my eyes for a short time, and imagined myself at sea, the impression that I was actually on the ocean would remain vividly upon me for a length of time. The cars, although running smoothly, rocked to and fro like a vessel; outside was the trackless prairie, without a landmark to define its limits, and the wind sweeping across it with the keen bite of a salt-water breeze-all combined to realize one's souvenir of a sea voyage. Indeed, a lady who tried the experiment declared that she felt sea-sick. This might be, for I have known good sailors get sick on a railroad.

These plains, which extend for about five

hundred miles, are the great buffalo runs. These sagacious animals, having true consideration for their health, keep their winter and summer quarters. They come to the prairie in summer, and retire into Arkansas in winter. They, as well as the Indians, object to their projects being interfered with by the railroad, and sometimes when the train crosses their path they attack it en masse. The train then puts on all speed, and runs from them, and, through want of generalship in the Tauro, usually manages to escape. Large shooting parties frequently do not even leave the cars; for the buffaloes literally cover the plain, and can be shot from the platform and windows-a sort of cockney sport, but one which the American hunter seems to delight in. Sometimes the plains are blackened over with these animals, and shooting at them is like firing into a mountain; but when they charge down upon any object I am told it is something terrific. With horns down, like serried bayonets, with eyes flashing like a train of lighted gunpowder, their hoofs and tails in the air, the hoarse tumult of their breathing, and the trembling of the earth beneath the weight of these thousands of enormous animals, make them a terrible enemy to encounter, and one not to be treated with impunity.

The buffalo never attacks wantonly, but he

recognizes no obstacle as insuperable, and will not go round. Formerly, in the days of the waggon trains, they would gallop straight into them, the drivers having to fly for their lives, and the frightened horses and tame cattle going off in the general stampede. The only possible way of escaping the fury of these terrific creatures was to break the train, and leave them a free passage. If one waggon remained in their way, they would clear it as a charge of cavalry would clear a fallen horse or rider. The buffalo hides are, of course, valuable; buffalo hump is very good, and the jerked-beef one of those relishes which, like ham, one never seems to tire of.

A party of English officers had come out expressly for the sport of buffalo shooting. The American officers quartered out on the plains entertained them with what hospitality they could, and joined in the sport. One Englishman imprudently got too near, and in the route of a huge animal, when it forthwith upset him and his horse, and cleared them without hurting them in the least. "By Jove!" cried his friend, "that was a lucky tumble; I would give a hundred pounds for one like it." The Americans laughed, and said they would rather give a hundred pounds to avoid such a tumble. They cannot understand the English idea that danger

enhances the pleasure of the sport. Indeed, Americans rarely indulge in it, unless upon some such occasion as the one described; they then join in it from complaisance, which American officers always show towards strangers.

To enter really into this sport of buffalo shooting, a man, besides being a good shot, ought to be an accomplished picador, and be able to swerve his horse to a hair's-breadth out of the range of the animal's horns, in order to take aim in a certain spot. The sport is as exciting as the Spanish bull-fight, or the steeplechase, which gives the "pleasure of pain " to see one's lover take the widest and broadest sunk-fence leap. The difference of national feeling is shown in one sportsman thinking a successful buffalo throw worth a hundred pounds, whilst another thinks that an escape from such a throw would be worth the same sum.

The Rocky Mountains, taken as a whole, convey neither the idea of mountains or rocks. So gradual is the ascent, that it appears to be rather a series of vast plains rising in steps one above another. They are not nearly so imposing as the Blue Mountains or the Alleghanies, nor is any portion of the road over the Great Rocky Mountains so terrific as over the former. Indeed, it conveys the idea of a dead level; for in no part of this continent had the rail ap