rolla was of a bright enamelled crimson, which, in the depths of the dark herbage, glowed like a living coal. How eloquently did this little flower bespeak the being and attributes of its Maker. Ah!

"There is religion in a flower;

Mountains and oceans, planets, suns, and systems,
Bear not the impress of Almighty power

In characters more legible than those

Which he has written on the tiniest flower

Whose light bell bends beneath the dewdrop's weight."

One who has never looked upon the Western prairie in the pride of its blushing bloom can hardly conceive the surpassing loveliness of its summer Flora; and, if the idea is not easy to conceive, still less is it so to convey. The autumn flowers in their richness I have not yet beheld; and in the early days of June, when I first stood upon the prairies, the beauteous sisterhood of spring were all in their graves; and the sweet springtime of the year it is when the gentle race of flowers dance over the teeming earth in gayest guise and profusion. In the first soft days of April, when the tender green of vegetation begins to overspread the soil scathed by the fires of autumn, the viola, primrose of the prairie, in all its rare and delicate forms; the anemone or wind-flower; the blue dewy harebell; the pale oxlip; the flowering arbute, and all the pretty family of the pinks and lilies lie sprinkled, as by the enchantment of a summer shower, or by the tripping footsteps of Titania with her fairies, over the landscape. The blue and the white then tint the perspective, from the most

limpid cerulean of an iris to the deep purple of the pink; from the pearly lustre of the cowslip to the golden richness of the buttercup. In early spring-time, too, the island groves of the prairies are also in flower; and the brilliant crimson of the cercis Canadensis, or Judas-tree; the delightful fragrance of the lonicera or honeysuckle, and the light yellow of the jasimum, render the forests as pleasant to the smell as to the eye. But spring-time passes away, and with her pass away the fair young flowers her soft breath had warmed into being. Summer comes over the prairies like a giant; the fiery dog-star rages, and forth leap a host of bright ones to greet his coming. The heliotrope and helianthus, in all their rich variety; the wild rose, flinging itself around the shrub-oak like a wreath of rainbows; the orchis, the balmy thyme, the burgamot, and the asters of every tint and proportion, then prevail, throwing forth their gaudy, sunburnt petals upon the wind, until the whole meadow seems arrayed in the royal livery of a sunset sky. Scarcely does the summer begin to decline, and autumn's golden sunlight to stream in misty magnificence athwart the landscape, than a thousand gorgeous plants of its own mellow hue are nodding in stately beauty over the plain. Yellow is the garniture of the autumnal Flora of the prairies; and the haughty golden-rod, and all the splendid forms of the gentiana, commingling with the white and crimson eupatorium, and the red spire of the liatris, everywhere bespangle the scene; while the trumpet-formed corolla of the bignonia radicans glitters VOL. II.-D

in the sunbeams, amid the luxuriant wreathing of ivy, from the tall capitals of the isolated trees. All the solidago species are in their glory, and every variety of the lobelia; and the blood-red sumach in the hollows and brakes, and the sagittaria, or arrow-head, with its three-leaved calyx and its three white petals darting forth from the recesses of the dark herbage, and all the splendid forms of the aquatic plants, with their broad blossoms and their cool scroll-like leaves, lend a finished richness of hue to the landscape, which fails not well to harmonize with the rainbow glow of the distant forest. -Such beauty, varying in the light

Of gorgeous nature, cannot be portrayed
By words, nor by the pencil's silent skill;
But is the property of those alone
Who have beheld it, noted it with care,

And, in their minds, recorded it with love."

What wonder, then, that, amid a scene like this, where the summer reigned, and young autumn was beginning to anticipate its mellow glories, the traveller should in a measure have forgotten his vocation, and loitered lazily along his way!

Portage des Sioux, Mo.

XXV.

"There's music in the forest leaves
When summer winds are there,
And in the laugh of forest girls

That braid their sunny hair."

HALLECK.

"The forests are around him in their pride,
The green savannas, and the mighty waves;
And isles of flowers, bright floating o'er the tide
That images the fairy world it laves."

HEMANS.

THERE is one feature of the Mamelle Prairie, besides its eminent beauty and its profusion of flowering plants, which distinguishes it from every other with which I have met. I allude to the almost perfect uniformity of its surface. There is little of that undulating, wavelike slope and swell which characterizes the peculiar species of surface called prairie. With the exception of a few lakes, abounding with aquatic plants and birds, and those broad furrows traversing the plain, apparently ancient beds of the rivers, the surface appears smooth as a lawn. This circumstance goes far to corroborate the idea of alluvial origin. And thus it was that, lost in a mazy labyrinth of grass and flowers, I wandered on over the smooth soil of the prairie, quite regardless of the whereabout my steps were conducting me. The sun was just going down when my horse entered a slight footpath leading into a point of woodland upon

azzas.

the right. This I pursued for some time, heedlessly presuming that it would conduct me to the banks of the river; when, lo! to my surprise, on emerging from the forest, I found myself in the midst of a French village, with its heavy roofs and broad piNever was the lazy hero of Diedrich Knickerbocker-luckless Rip-more sadly bewildered, after a twenty years' dose among the Hudson Highlands, than was your loiterer at this unlooked-for apparition. To find one's self suddenly translated from the wild, flowery prairie into the heart of an aged, moss-grown village, of such foreign aspect, withal, was by no means easy to reconcile with one's notions of reality. Of the name, or even the existence of the village, I had been quite as ignorant as if it had never possessed either; and in vain was it that I essayed, in my perplexity, to make myself familiar with these interesting items of intelligence by inquiry of the primitive-looking beings whom I chanced to encounter, as I rode slowly on into the village through the tall stoccades of the narrow streets. Every one stared as I addressed him; but, shaking his head and quickening his pace, pointed me on in the direction I was proceeding, and left me to pursue it in ignorance and single blessedness. This mystery-for thus to my excited fancy did it seem-became at length intolerable. Drawing up my horse before the open door of a cottage, around which, beneath the galleries, were gathered a number of young people of both sexes, I very peremptorily made the demand where I was. All stared, and some few took it upon them, graceless youths, to