Prose Writings of William Cullen Bryant Author:W. C. Bryant Volume: 6 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1889 Original Publisher: Appleton Subjects: Literary Collections / General Literary Criticism / American / General Poetry / General Poetry / American / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may... more » be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE EARLY NORTHWEST. Steamer Oregon, Lake Huron, Off Thunder Bay, July 24, 1846 : Buffalo continues to extend on every side, but the late additions to the city do not much improve its beauty. Its nucleus of well-built streets does not seem to have grown much broader within the last five years, but the suburbs are rapidly spreading -- small wooden houses, scattered or in clusters, built hastily for emigrants along unpaved and powdery streets. I saw, however, on a little excursion which I made into the surrounding country, that pleasant little neighborhoods are rising up at no great distance, with their neat houses, their young trees, and their new shrubbery. On Tuesday evening, at seven o'clock, we took passage in the steamer Oregon for Chicago, and soon lost sight of the roofs and spires of Buffalo. The next morning found us with the southern shore of Lake Erie in sight -- a long line of woods, with here and there a cluster of habitations on the shore. " That village where you see the light-house," said one of the passengers who came from the hills of Maine, " is Grand River, and from that place to Cleveland, which is thirty miles distant, you have the most beautiful country under the sun -- perfectly beautiful, sir; not a hill the whole way, and the finest farms that were ever seen; you can buy a good farm there for two thousand dollars." In two or three hours afterward we were at Cleveland, and I hastened on shore. It is situated bey...« less