To the man of cultivated imagination and delicate taste, the study of nature never fails to afford a gratification, refined as it is exquisite. In the pencilled petals of the flower as it bows to the evening breeze; in the glittering scales of the fish leaping from the wave; in the splendid plumage of the forest-bird, and in the music-tinklings of the wreathed and enamelled sea-shell rocked by the billow, he recognises an eloquence of beauty which he alone can appreciate. For him, too, the myriad forms of animate creation unite with inanimate nature in one mighty hymn of glory to their Maker, from the hum of the sparkling ephemeroid as he blithely dances away his little life in the beams of a summer sun, and the rustling music of the prairie-weed swept by the winds, to the roar of the shaggy woods upon the mountain-side, and the fierce, wild shriek of the ocean-eagle. To investigate [234] the more minute and delicate of Nature's workings is indeed a delightful task; and along this fairy and flowery pathway the cultivated fancy revels with unmingled gratification; but, as the mind approaches the vaster exhibitions of might and majesty, the booming of the troubled ocean, the terrible sublimity of the midnight storm, the cloudy magnificence of the mountain height, the venerable grandeur of the aged forest, it expands itself in unison till lost in the immensity of created things. Reflections like these are constantly suggesting themselves to the traveller's thoughts amid the grand scenery of the West; but at no season do they rise more vividly upon the mind than when the lengthened shadows of evening are stealing over the landscape, and the summer sun is sinking to his rest. This is the "magic hour" when

There is not a more magnificent spectacle in nature than summer sunset on the Western prairie. I have beheld the orb of day, after careering his course like a giant through the firmament, go down into the fresh tumbling billows of ocean; and sunset on the prairies, which recalls that scene, is alone equalled by it.

Near nightfall one evening I found myself in the middle of one of these vast extended plains, where the eye roves unconfined over the scene, for miles unrelieved by a stump, or a tree, or a thicket, and meets only the deep blue of the horizon on [235] every side, blending with the billowy foliage of the distant woodland. Descending a graceful slope, even this object is lost, and a boundless landscape of blue above and green below is unfolded to the traveller's vision; again, approaching the summit of the succeeding slope, the forest rises in clear outline in the margin of the vast panorama. For some hours the heavens had been so enveloped in huge masses of brassy clouds, that now, when the shadows deepened over sky and earth, one was at a loss to determine whether the sun had yet gone down, except for a broad zone of sapphire girding the whole western firmament. Upon the superior edge of this deep belt now glistened the luminary, gradually revealing itself to the eye, and blazing forth at length "like angels' locks unshorn," flinging a halo of golden effulgence far athwart the dim evening prairie. A metamorphosis so abrupt, so rapid, so unlooked for, seemed almost to realize the fables of enchantment. One moment, and the whole vast landscape lay veiled in shadowy dimness; the next, and every grass blade, and spray, and floweret, and nodding wild-weed seemed suffused in a flood of liquid effulgence; while far along, the uniform ridges of the heaving plain gleamed in the rich light like waves of a moonlit sea, sweeping away, roll upon roll, till lost in distance to the eye. Slowly the splendid disk went down behind the sea of waving verdure, until at length a single point of intense, bewildering brightness flamed out above the mass of green. An instant, this too was gone—as

[236] and then those deep, lurid funeral fires of departing day streamed, flaring upward even to the zenith, flinging over the vast concave a robe of unearthly, terrible magnificence! Then, as the fount of all this splendour sank deeper and deeper beneath the horizon, the blood-red flames died gently away into the mellow glories of summer evening skylight, bathing the brow of heaven in a tender roseate, which hours after cheered the lonely traveller across the waste.

The pilgrim wanderer in other climes comes back to tell us of sunnier skies and softer winds! The blue heavens of Italy have tasked the inspiration of an hundred bards, and the warm brush of her own Lorraine has swept the canvass with their gorgeous transcript! But what pencil has wandered over the grander scenes of the North American prairie? What bard has struck his lyre to the wild melody of loveliness of the prairie sunset? Yet who shall tell us that there exists not a glory in the scene, amid the untrod wastes of the wilderness West, which even the skies of "sunny Italy" might not blush anew to acknowledge? No wandering Harold has roamed on a pilgrimage of poetry over the sublime and romantic scenery of our land, to hymn its praise in breathing thoughts and glowing words; yet here as there,

I cannot tell of the beauties of climes I have never seen; but I have gazed upon all the varied loveliness of my own fair, native land, from the rising [237] sun to its setting, and in vain have tasked my fancy to image a fairer.

A pleasant day's ride directly west from Carlisle, over extensive and beautiful prairies, intersected by shady woods, with their romantic creeks, and the traveller finds himself in the quiet village of Lebanon. Its site is a commanding, mound-like elevation in the skirts of a forest, swelling gently up from the prairie on the west bank of Little Silver Creek.155 This stream, with the larger branch, received its name from the circumstance that the early French settlers of the country, in the zeal of their faith and research for the precious metals, a long while mistook the brilliant specula of horneblende which flow in its clear waters for silver, and were unwilling to be undeceived in their extravagant anticipations until the absence of the material in their purses aroused them from their error. In the neighbourhood of Rock Spring a shaft for a mine was sunk.156 It was early one beautiful morning that I found myself approaching the village of Lebanon, though many miles distant in the adjacent plain; appropriately named for its loveliness the "Looking-glass Prairie." The rosy sunbeams were playing lightly over the pleasant country-seats and neat farmhouses, with their white palings, sprinkled along the declivity before me, imbowered in their young orchards and waving maize-fields; while flocks and herds, [238] gathered in isolated masses over the intervening meadow, were cropping the rich herbage. To the right and left, and in the rear, the prairie stretches away beyond the view. The body of the village is situated about one mile from these suburbs, and its character and history may be summed up in the single sentence, a pleasant little Methodist country village. The peculiarities of the sect are here strikingly manifested to the traveller in all the ordinary concerns and occupations of life, even in the every-day garb and conversation of its sober-browed citizens. It presents the spectacle, rare as it is cheering, of an entire community characterized by its reverence for religion. Located in its immediate vicinity is a flourishing seminary, called McKendreean College.157 It is under the supervision of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has at present two instructers, with about fifty pupils in the preparatory department. It has a commodious frame building, presenting from its elevated site an imposing view to the traveller. As is usually the case with these little out-of-the-world villages, when any object comes up in the midst around which the feelings and interests of all may cluster, upon this institution is centred the heart and soul of every man, to say not a word of all the women and children, in Lebanon; and everything not connected, either remotely or immediately, with its welfare, is deemed of very little, if of any importance. "The Seminary! The Seminary!" I defy a traveller to tarry two hours in the village without hearing rung all the changes upon that topic for his edification. The surrounding region is fertile, populous, [239] and highly cultivated; and for an inland, farming village, it is quite as bustling, I suppose, as should be expected; though, during my visit, its streets—which, by-the-by, are of very liberal breadth—maintained a most Sabbath-like aspect.

The route from Lebanon to Belleville is, in fine weather, very excellent. Deep woods on either side of the hard, smooth, winding pathway, throw their boughs over the head, sometimes lengthening away into an arched vista miles in extent. It was a sultry afternoon when I was leisurely travelling along this road; and the shadowy coolness of the atmosphere, the perfume of wild flowers and aromatic herbs beneath the underbrush, and the profusion of summer fruit along the roadside, was indescribably delightful. Near sunset, a graceful bend of the road around a clump of trees placed before me the pretty little village of Belleville; its neat enclosures and white cottages peeping through the shrubbery, now gilded by the mellow rays of sunset in every leaf and spray.158 Whether it was owing to this agreeable coincidence, or to the agreeable visit I here enjoyed, that I conceived such an attachment for the place, I cannot say; but sure it is, I fell in love with the little town at first sight; and, what is more marvellous, was not, according to all precedent, cured at second, when on the following morning I sallied forth to reconnoitre its beauties "at mine own good leisure." Now it is to be presumed that, agreeable to the taste of six travellers in a dozen, I have passed through many a village in Illinois quite as attractive as this same Belleville: but to convince me of the fact would be no [240] easy task. "Man is the sport of circumstance," says the fatalist; and however this may be in the moral world, if any one feels disposed to doubt upon the matter in the item before us, let him disembark from a canal-boat at Pittsburgh on a rainy, misty, miserable morning; and then, unable to secure for his houseless head a shelter from the pitiless peltings, let him hurry away through the filthy streets, deluged with inky water, to a crowded Ohio steamer; and if "circumstances" do not force him to dislike Pittsburgh ever after, then his human nature is vastly more forbearing than my own. Change the picture. Let him enter the quiet little Illinois village at the gentle hour of sunset; let him meet warm hospitality, and look upon fair forms and bright faces, and if he fail to be pleased with that place, why, "he's not the man I took him for."

The public buildings of Belleville are a handsome courthouse of brick, a wretched old jail of the same material, a public hall belonging to a library company, and a small framed Methodist house of worship. It is situated in the centre of "Turkey-hill Settlement," one of the oldest and most flourishing in the state, and has a fine timber tract and several beautiful country-seats in its vicinity.

Leaving Belleville with some reluctance, and not a few "longing, lingering looks behind," my route continued westward over a broken region of alternating forest and prairie, sparsely sprinkled with trees, and yet more sparsely with inhabitants. At length, having descended a precipitous hill, the rounded summit of which, as well as the adjoining heights, commanded an immense expanse of level [241] landscape, stretching off from the base, I stood once more upon the fertile soil of the "American Bottom." The sharp, heavy-roofed French cottages, with low verandahs running around; the ungainly outhouses and enclosures; the curiously-fashioned vehicles and instruments of husbandry in the barnyards and before the doors; the foreign garb and dialect of the people; and, above all, the amazing fertility of the soil, over whose exhaustless depths the maize has rustled half a century, constitute the most striking characteristics of this interesting tract, in the section over which I was passing. This settlement, extending from the foot of the bluffs for several miles over the Bottom, was formed about forty years ago by a colony from Cahokia, and known by the name of "Little French Village;" it now comprises about twenty houses and a grogshop. In these bluffs lies an exhaustless bed of bituminous coal: vast quantities have been transported to St. Louis, and for this purpose principally is the railway to the river designed. This vein of coal is said to have been discovered by the rivulet of a spring issuing from the base of the bluffs. The stratum is about six feet in thickness, increasing in size as it penetrates the hill horizontally. Though somewhat rotten and slaty, it is in some particulars not inferior to the coal of the Alleghanies; and the vein is thought to extend from the mouth of the Kaskaskia to that of the Illinois. About three miles below the present shaft, a continuation of the bed was discovered by fire communicated from the root of a tree; the bank of coal burnt for upward of a [242] twelvemonth, and the conflagration was then smothered only by the falling in of the superincumbent soil. St. Clair county, which embraces a large portion of the American Bottom, is the oldest settlement in the state. In 1795 the county was formed by the Legislature of the Northwestern Territory, and then included all settlements in Illinois east of the Mississippi.

I had just cleverly cleared the outskirts of the little antediluvian village beneath the bluffs, when a dark, watery-looking cloud came tumbling up out of the west; the thunder roared across the Bottom and was reverberated from the cliffs, and in a few moments down came the big rain-drops dancing in torrents from the clouds, and pattering up like mist along the plain. Verily, groaned forth the wo-begone traveller, this is the home of clouds and the realm of thunder! Never did hapless mortals sustain completer drenchings than did the traveller and his steed, notwithstanding upon the first onset they had plunged themselves into the sheltering depths of the wood. A half hour's gallop over the slippery bottom, and the stern roar of a steamer's 'scape-pipe informed me that I was not far from the "great waters." A few yards through the belt of forest, and the city of San Louis, with towers and roofs, stood before me.

St. Louis.

---