The things we do!

A traveller, Paul Fountain by
name, and so of French origin, I suspect, wandering over those valley
plains in the early days, tells of the sense of freedom, health, and
strength that they give: "There is no air like the prairie air--not even
the grand freshness of the boundless ocean itself.--The loveliness and
variety of the prairie odors are quite indescribable, as are its superb
wild flowers. It is a paradise. No man who has lived on it long enough to
know it and love it (no great time, I can assure you) ever experiences
real happiness after he has left it. There is a longing and eager craving
to return to the life. The vulgar cowboys and hunters, uneducated and
unpoetical past all degree, never leave it except to get drunk. Their
money gone, back they go to get fresh strength and more pelf for another
orgie; but if by chance they abandon the wild, free life, they soon drink
themselves to lunacy or death, and their last babblings are of the
glorious wilderness they all love." [Footnote: "The Great Deserts and
Forests of North America," p.


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