The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of AmericaButler, William Francis, Sir
History
The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America
Butler, William Francis, Sir
Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
On the night of the 19th of February we made our last camp on the ridge
to the south of Lake Manitoba, fifty miles from Fort Garry. Not without
a feeling of regret was the old work gone through for the last time--the
old work of tree-cutting, and fire-making, and supper-frying, and
dog-feeding. Once more I had reached those confines of civilization on
whose limits four months earlier I had made my first camp on the
shivering Prairie of the Lonely Grave; then the long journey lay before
me, now the unnumbered scenes of nigh 3000 miles of travel were spread
out in that picture which memory sees in the embers of slow-burning
fires, when the night-wind speaks in dreamy tones to the willow branches
and waving grasses. And if there be those among my readers who can il
comprehend such feelings, seeing only in this return the escape from
savagery to civilization--from the wild Indian to the Anglo-American,
from the life of toil and hardship to that of rest and comfort-then words
would be useless to throw light upon the matter, or to better enable
such men to understand that it was possible to look back with keen regret
to the wild days of the forest and the prairie. Natures, no matter how we
may mould them beneath the uniform pressure of the great machine called
civilization, are not all alike, and many men's minds echo in some shape
or other the voice of the Kirghis woman, which says, "Man must keep
moving; for, behold, sun, moon, stars, water, beast, bird, fish, all are
in movement: it is but the dead and the earth that remain in one place."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account