When you have once set eyes upon the never-ending sweep of the Great Plains, you no longer wonder that America rejects Malthusianism. As Strachey says of Virginia, “Here is ground enough to satisfy the most courteous and wide affection.” The freedom of these grand countries was worth the tremendous conflict in which it was, in reality, the foremost question; their future is of enormous moment to America.

Travellers soon learn, when making estimates of a country's value, to despise no feature of the landscape; that of the Plains is full of life, full of charm—lonely, indeed, but never wearisome. Now great rolling uplands of enormous sweep, now boundless grassy plains, there is all the grandeur of monotony, and yet continual change. Sometimes the grand distances are broken by blue buttes or rugged bluffs. Over all there is a sparkling atmosphere and never-failing breeze; the air is bracing even when most hot; the sky is cloudless, and no rain falls. A solitude which no words can paint, the boundless prairie swell, conveys an idea of vastness which is the overpowering feature of the Plains.