We left Cincinnati
at half-past eight, and reached this place, Vincennes, where we are to
sleep, at about six o'clock. The road was very pretty, though the leaves
were nearly all off the trees; the forms of the trees were, however,
lovely, and it was quite a new description of country to us, the
clearings being recent and still very rough in appearance, and the
log-houses, in most places, of a most primitive kind. Vincennes, where
we are to sleep, is an old town of French origin, prettily situated on
the river Wabash, which we can see from our windows.
_St. Louis, November 4th._--We came on here on the 2nd instant, and soon
after leaving Vincennes found ourselves in a prairie, but it was not
till after sixty miles that we got to the Grand Prairie, which we
traversed for about sixty more. The vastness, however, of this prairie,
consists in its length from north to south, in which it stretches
through nearly the whole length of the State. These prairies are
enormous plains of country, covered, at this time, by a long brown
grass, in which are the seed-vessels and remains of innumerable flowers,
which are said to be most lovely in their form and colour in the spring.
It was disappointing only to see the dark remains of what must have been
such a rich parterre of flowers. One of our party, Colonel Reilly, of
Texas, who had seen our Crystal Palace gardens at Sydenham, in full
flower, said that they reminded him of the prairies in the spring.
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