File:Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of (14577441080).jpg

Identifier: picturesqueameri01brya (find matches)
Title: Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878, editor Bunce, Oliver Bell, 1828-1890
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton
Contributing Library: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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ut. The oral 542 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. and written accounts of pioneer-life in Ohio are full of dismal tales of this region.Wild beasts roamed in its fastnesses, coming out into the settled districts, ravaging theflocks, and carrying terror to the isolated homes bordering on the wilderness. As im-migration increased, villages sprang up on all sides, but the Swamp itself long remainedalmost an unknown land. It was a singular region, and not without its charm; itslevel surface and the uniformity of its soil gave to the forest a remarkable regularity—the trees being of the same height, extending in straight ranks mile after mile, resem-bling from a distance an even, blue wall against the sky. The foliage was so dense thatwhen the first roads were .built through to the West the immigrants travelled for daysalong the shadowed aisles, norsaw the sun from border to bor-der. This long twilight and si-lence impressed them strangely,and, bold frontiersmen as theywere, they drew a long breath J
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Sphinx Head, Gibraltar. when they emerged intodaylight, and the open coun-try beyond; and ever after-ward they spoke of thejourney in terms which seem almost poetical when compared with the practical proseof their ordinary language. But it was not the poetry of admiration; it was a vaguefear, a vague wonder over the mystery of the dark labyrinth, and what it might con-tain. Yet it was not a land of desolation. Vines and blossoms were everywhere, andbirds sang among the branches. It was the mystery that impressed them— a land ofthe shadow of death, they called it. The soil of the Black Swamp is very fertile; as soon as it is drained it becomes agarden—fruit, grain, and vegetables, spring up with wonderful rapidity, and already manyparts of the territory are under cultivation. Towns have now grown up within its bor-ders, and the locomotive rushes past the old corduroy roads laid on the quaking morass. THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE ERIE. 543 over which the immigrants floundered, and though

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