A particular occasion had drawn together at this spot a large cavalcade of both sexes, gayly caparisoned and well-mounted, many of the females being equipped in riding-habits, hats with feathers, and all more or less picturesque in their appearance. They chose to accompany the carriage to a little town about six or seven miles distant, over a beautiful expanse of prairie, or as it might be aptly termed, “faerie land,” exhibiting a succession of grassy lawns and beds of flowers of hundreds of acres, marshaled under different colors, some were red, some blue, and others entirely yellow. It is difficult to imagine a more gay and beautiful spectacle than that presented on this occasion. The sky was sufficiently obscured to temper the glare of sunshine, which is sometimes here painful to the eye, and the playful cavalcade, consisting of perhaps an hundred, indulged in a thousand careless, graceful evolutions on the level greensward, that seemed without beginning or end, and offered no obstruction in any direction. Sometimes a pair of riders of both sexes would dash out from the throng, and scamper away until they appeared like shadows against the distant horizon; and at others, the whole mass would separate in different directions, skimming over the plain like Arabs on their winged steeds, their different colored dresses and picturesque costumes rendering the scene indescribably gay and animating. The females all without exception sat and managed their horses with that perfect skill and grace arising from constant habit, and upon the whole, I never witnessed any exhibition that could compare with this ride on the prairie of Illinois in romantic interest and novelty.