"A few miles further on we entered on a branch of Looking Glass Prairie, Bond County, where long reaches of green undulating prairie stretched away until they became lost in the haze of distance; and, within a few hours of sunset, we emerged from a grove on the shore of one which lay stretched out before us like an ocean. In the direction which the track we were following took, we could just distinguish the forest like a low bank of cloud, whilst on our right the prairie stretched away, one vast plain, uninterrupted by tree or bush, as far as the eye could reach."