Mystical forms came into
view--grotesquely elongated, unrecognizable. Hills twenty, thirty miles
away rose like apparitions, astonishingly magnified. Willows became
elms, a settler's shanty rose like a shot-tower--towns hitherto unseen
swam and palpitated in the yellow flood of light like shaken banners
low-hung on unseen flagstaffs.
Burke marched with uplifted face. He was like one suddenly wakened in a
new world, where nothing was familiar. Not a tree or shrub was in sight.
Not a mark of plough or harrow--everything was wild, and to him mystical
and glorious. His eyes were like those of a man who sees a world at its
birth.
Hour after hour they moved across the swelling land. Hour after hour,
while the yellow sun rolled up the slope, putting to flight the morning
shapes on the horizon--striking the plain into level prose again, and
warming the air into genial March. Hour after hour the horses toiled on
till the last cabin fell away to the east, like a sail at sea, till the
road faded into a trail almost imperceptible on the firm sod.
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