"Springfield, Illinois, May 20, 1840.
"Yesterday morning I left Griggsville, my knapsack at my back, pursued
my journey all day on foot, and found so new and great delight in this
charming country, that I must needs tell you about it. Do you remember
our saying once, that we never found the trees tall enough, the fields
green enough. Well, the trees are for once tall, and fair to look upon,
and one unvarying carpet of the tenderest green covers these marvellous
fields, that spread out their smooth sod for miles and miles, till they
even reach the horizon. But, to begin my day's journey. Griggsville is
situated on the west side of the Illinois river, on a high prairie;
between it and the river is a long range of bluffs which reaches a
hundred miles north and south, then a wide river bottom, and then the
river. It was a mild, showery morning, and I directed my steps toward
the bluffs. They are covered with forest, not like our forests, tangled
and impassable, but where the trees stand fair and apart from one
another, so that you might ride every where about on horseback, and the
tops of the hills are generally bald, and covered with green turf, like
our pastures. Indeed, the whole country reminds me perpetually of one
that has been carefully cultivated by a civilized people, who had been
suddenly removed from the earth, with all the works of their hands, and
the land given again into nature's keeping. The solitudes are not
savage; they have not that dreary, stony loneliness that used to affect
me in our own country; they never repel; there are no lonely heights, no
isolated spots, but all is gentle, mild, inviting,--all is accessible.
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