Wearily passed the hottest noonday hour, with many an anxious look at the horned-heads, which seemed to me to bow lower and lower, while the poor tired hoofs almost refused to move. The two young men had been out of sight for some time; when, all at once, we heard a shout, and saw, a few hundred yards in advance a couple of hats thrown into the air and four hands waving triumphantly. As soon as we got near enough, we heard them call out, “Grass and water! Grass and water!” and shortly we were at the meadows. A Tour on the Prairies When wagon trains reached Independence, Missouri, and prepared to jump off for the Far West, they faced some six hundred miles of prairie before reaching the mountains. There was water, grass, and game (especially buffalo) in abundance, but it was an awesome spectacle to travel week after week across the empty plains. When Washington Irving returned from many years in Europe, he wanted to see the prairie and joined an expedition in 1832 which traveled as far west as the present site of Oklahoma City. One of his companions was Henry Ellsworth, a commissioner appointed by Andrew Jackson to help pacify the Indians. In the selection that follows, Ellsworth describes the prairie in central Oklahoma, tells how one of his men captured a wild horse, and recounts his own experience in shooting a buffalo. Henry Ellsworth Accompanies Washington Irving Across the Plains The country today is truly delightful. The prairies are smooth, the streams frequent, and meandering so as to present a vigorous growth of stately trees on every side. The flowers of spring have disappeared and left the numerous stalks covered with seeds as mementoes of vernal fragrance, but the autumnal blossoms mixed with the prairie grass never fail to attract the eye with delight, or refresh the lungs by their sweet odours. My late travelling companion, Dr. O’Dwyer, says Eden was here and not on the Euphrates: “Adam’s paradise was in these prairies!” Mr. Irving said often today that the most splendid parks in England did not surpass the beautiful scenery around us, and yet between both there was such a striking resemblance as to recall to his mind at once the delightful rambles he had in Europe where art had been lavish in her favors to enhance the beauties of nature. I can say also, though my residence in Europe was short, that I beheld no scenery there so truly beautiful and grand as the rich prairies of the West. And if the prairies now are so charming, what must they be decked with the variegated plumage of spring?... I ought perhaps to mention the woods on these parks afforded excellent varieties of fruits. The season now was too late for most of them—the persimmon, haws, and winter grape were very abundant.