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Läsebok. N:o 62—63.
75
rivers, so broad and deep, and of such a length of course,
that the boasted streams of Europe are but brooks to them,
overflow their banks every season, and nourish thousands of
beautiful and sweet-smelling plants, good for food, or for
physic, or other uses of man. Rugged mountains, barren
sands, and dismal marshes are but sparingly intermixed; and
the climate, though both very hot in summer and very cold
in winter, is healthy on the whole, and often exceedingly
delightful. It is likely that, a few ages hence, the
Americans of English blood will have spread themselves far and
wide over this lovely wilderness; and towns, and villages,
and pleasant farms will arise, and the busy hum of men will
resound where now all is savage and rude, and no voice
is heard.
Meantime, though man is not here, vast multitudes of
other living creatures, beasts, and birds, and fishes, and
reptiles, and insects, innumerable tribes, possess the land, and
live, and bring forth young; and all are happy according to
their natures. Prodigious herds of buffaloes, or wild oxen,
wander over the open country and quench their thirst on
the margins of the rivers. At some seasons of the year, the
bulls fight furiously, rushing together with all their force,
and each striving to göre the other with his horns; their
frightful bellowing may then be heard for many, many miles
together, resounding on all sides like peals of the loudest
thunder; and at that time neither man nor beast dares
venture near them. When these animals have eaten up the
herbage or drunk the springs dry in one region, they move on
towards another, like a great army on its march. They are
followed and watched by bears and troops of large wolves,
who seize upou those which fall sick, or lame, and lag
behind, and devour them in numbers; but still the great host
moves steadily along, fearing nothing. At length they reach
the high steep banks of a river; they rush on, eager to drink;
those behind press violently against those before, and push
them on, in spite of themselves, till they are driven over
the edge of the bank, and are either maimed or dashed in
pieces by the fall. Hundreds are sometimes killed in this
manner: the eagles who build their nests in the islands of
the river, watch them as they come tumbling over, and
pouncing down, tear them as they lie, with their sharp beaks and
strong hooked talons.
There are also many different kinds of deer, and of
antelopes, or roebucks, and goats, and a sort of sheep, all
which creatures either pasture in the plains in herds, like
the buffaloes, or wander about in families or little troops,
some feeding on the acorns, or browsing on the leaves of
the forests, others climbing the rocks to nibble on the short
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