Between Pueblo and Bent's fort, southward, in a clear afternoon sun-spell I catch exceptionally good glimpses of the Spanish peaks. We are in southeastern Colorado--pass immense herds of cattle as our first-class locomotive rushes us along--two or three times crossing the Arkansas, which we follow many miles, and of which river I get fine views, sometimes for quite a distance, its stony, upright, not very high, palisade banks, and then its muddy flats. We pass Fort Lyon--lots of adobie houses--limitless pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those herds of cattle--in due time the declining sun in the west--a sky of limpid pearl over all--and so evening on the great plains. A calm, pensive, boundless landscape--the perpendicular rocks of the north Arkansas, hued in twilight--a thin line of violet on the southwestern horizon--the palpable coolness and slight aroma--a belated cow-boy with some unruly member of his herd--an emigrant wagon toiling yet a little further, the horses slow and tired--two men, apparently father and son, jogging along on foot--and around all the indescribable _chiaroscuro_ and sentiment, (profounder than anything at sea,) athwart these endless wilds. AMERICA'S CHARACTERISTIC LANDSCAPE Speaking generally as to the capacity and sure future destiny of that plain and prairie area (larger than any European kingdom) it is the inexhaustible land of wheat, maize, wool, flax, coal, iron, beef and pork, butter and cheese, apples and grapes--land of ten million virgin farms--to the eye at present wild and unproductive--yet experts say that upon it when irrigated may easily be grown enough wheat to feed the world. Then as to scenery (giving my own thought and feeling,) while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like, afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the Prairies and the Plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape. Indeed through the whole of this journey, with all its shows and varieties, what most impress'd me, and will longest remain with me, are these same prairies. Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes, to all my senses--the esthetic one most of all--they silently and broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime. EARTH'S MOST IMPORTANT STREAM