over mountains and through ravines, with no cessation of speed.
Even the shipper pays the low rate of transportation asked to-day with
reluctance, and forgets the great debt he owes this adjunct of our
civilization.

But great as are the practical benefits derived from the railways, we
cannot repress a sigh as we meditate on the picturesque phases of the
vanished era. Gone are the bullwhackers and the prairie-schooners!
Gone are the stagecoaches and their drivers! Gone are the Pony Express
riders! Gone are the trappers, the hardy pioneers, the explorers, and
the scouts! Gone is the prairie monarch, the shaggy, unkempt buffalo!

In 1869, only thirty years ago, the train on the Kansas Pacific-road was
delayed eight hours in consequence of the passage of an enormous herd
of buffaloes over the track in front of it. But the easy mode of travel
introduced by the railroad brought hundreds of sportsmen to the plains,
who wantonly killed this noble animal solely for sport, and thousands
of buffaloes were sacrificed for their skins, for which there was a
widespread demand. From 1868 to 1881, in Kansas alone, there was paid
out $2,500,000 for the bones of this animal, which were gathered up on
the prairie and used in the carbon works of the country. This represents
a total death-rate of 31,000,000 buffaloes in one state. As far as I am
able to ascertain, there remains at this writing only one herd, of less
than twenty animals, out of all the countless thousands that roamed the
prairie so short a time ago, and this herd is carefully preserved in a
private park. There may be a few isolated specimens in menageries
and shows, but this wholesale slaughter has resulted in the practical
extermination of the species.

As with the animal native to our prairies, so has it been with the
race native to our land. We may deplore the wrongs of the Indian,
and sympathize with his efforts to wrest justice from his so-called
protectors. We may admire his poetic nature, as evidenced in the myths
and legends of the race. We may be impressed by the stately dignity
and innate ability as orator and statesman which he displays. We may
preserve the different articles of his picturesque garb as relics. But
the old, old drama of history is repeating itself before the eyes
of this generation; the inferior must give way to the superior
civilization. The poetic, picturesque, primitive red man must inevitably
succumb before the all-conquering tread of his pit