he traveller this keeps
continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and
fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean
itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked.

In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect,
though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly
interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves,
copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the
ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been
given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after
crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the
mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are
"islands;" larger tracts of timber, seen afar, "land;" narrow spaces
between, "straits;" and indentations along their edges "bays."

To carry the analogy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half
buried in the tall grass, may be likened to "schools" of whales; the
wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet
antelopes to flying-fish.

Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing
the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer
frigate-bird, or albatross.

In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century
ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet
his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the
prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner--only a traveller,
passing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with shaggy frontlets
and humped shoulders--the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full
flowing manes--the proud antlered stags, and prong-horned antelopes,
were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free
to them for pasture, as to him for passage; and, as he made way through
their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might
boast of being "war's arbiter's," and lords of the great ocean. They
were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River
and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its
shores.

Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface;
though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand
expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the
colonist--almost