Between the stately masses of the groves were grassy lawns and glades, studded with flowers, or interspersed with rose-bushes in full bloom.

These islands were often the resort of the buffalo, the elk, and the antelope, who had made innumerable paths among the trees and thickets, which had the effect of the mazy walks and alleys of parks and shrubberies.

Sometimes, where the river passed between high banks and bluffs, the roads made by the tramp of buffaloes for many ages along the face of the heights, looked like so many well-travelled highways.
At other places the banks were banded with great veins of iron ore, laid bare by the abrasion of the river.

At one place the course of the river was nearly in a straight line for about fifteen miles.

The banks sloped gently to its margin, without a single tree, but bordered with grass and herbage of a vivid green.