Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1905 — LONELINESS OF THE PRAIRIES. [ARTICLE]

LONELINESS OF THE PRAIRIES.

“I had almost as soon be set adrift in a small boat in mid-ocean as to be dropped down on the vast prairie near the Kansas-Colorado State line." said a man who is familiar with the West, says the Birmingham (Ala) News. “One cannot realizes the loneliness of the western plains until he has crossed them. There are very few human habitations, comparatively lit tie of the land Is under cultivation and water Is a scarce and precious commodity. In every direction nothing meets the gaze of the eye except a trackless, treeless waste which is bounded only by the lowering sky. Prairie dogß are the chief denizens of this region,, and as the train yhlrls past they perch bn thel£. hind legs and sit bolt upright ks motionless as a status. ThUVe are a few houses, but they arp at widfi Intervals. The one singly advantage that 1 lonely pdtffiStrian has fit that region i» that by following th? railroad trsic" . sufficiently far he Will reach a town some day; but walking at this season under the burning prairie sun and in a waterless country is by no means pleasant “It is positively tiresome to the eye to ride across the prairies in a comfortable Pullman car surrounded by all the luxuries of life. This be ing true, it must be next to appalling to have to tramp over this region without food or water, except what one •>egß at the few stations along the route. I have never been able to see anything picturesque or inviting about the wide stretching plains.”