shed us
with a comfortable conveyance to this pleasant neighborhood.

Letter XXXIII.

Return to Chicago.

Chicago, _August_ 8, 1846.

You may be certain that in returning to this place from Princeton I did
not take the stage coach. I had no fancy for another plunge into the
Illinois canal, nor for being overturned upon the prairies in one of those
vehicles which seem to be set high in the air in order they may more
easily lose their balance. We procured a private conveyance and made the
journey in three days--three days of extreme heat, which compelled us to
travel slowly. The quails, which had repaired for shade to the fences by
the side of the road, ran from them into the open fields, as we passed,
with their beaks open, as if panting with the excessive heat.

The number of these birds at the present time is very great. They swarm in
the stubble fields and in the prairies, and manifest little alarm at the
approach of man. Still more numerous, it appears to me, are the grouse, or
prairie-hens, as they call them here, which we frequently saw walking
leisurely, at our approach, into the grass from the road, whither they
resorted for the sake of scattered grains of oats or wheat that had fallen
from the loaded wagons going to Chicago. At this season they are full fed
and fearless, and fly heavily when they are started. We frequently saw
them feeding at a very short distance from people at work in the fields.
In some neighborhoods they seem almost as numerous as fowls in a
poultry-yard. A settler goes out with his gun, and in a quarter of an hour
brings in half a dozen birds which in the New York market would cost two
dollars a pair. At one place where we stopped to dine, they gave us a kind
of pie which seemed to me an appropriate dessert for a dinner of
prairie-hens. It was made of the fruit of the western crab-apple, and was
not unpalatable. The wild apple of this country is a small tree growing in
thickets, natural orchards. In spring it is profusely covered with
light-pink blossoms, which have the odor of violets, and at this season it
is thickly hung with fruit of the color of its leaves.

Another wild fruit of the country is the plum, which grows in thickets,
plum-patches, as they are called, where they are produced in great
abundance, and sometimes, I am told, of excellent quality. In a drive
which I took the other day from Princeton to the alluvial lands of the
Bureau River, I passed by a declivi