Upland

“ The hills, both however, generally lie back from the river on banks with pretty plains under them; here, wide enough for a small field, or garden; there, giving space for a pretty farm. The uplands rise from the small bottoms in easy flowing slopes, green in fresh growth. There are on both slopes occasional farms and small hamlets, affording life and movement to the pretty picture.
When this continent shall become a single nation—one grand Republic; the frozen arms of an Arctic ice-floe enfolding its northern boundary ”

“ They afford the perennial supplies to rivers, and furnish in their valleys and ever varying slopes, stations suited to every form of existence. A considerable area of Central Europe is occupied by uplands of moderate elevation, a comparatively small portion being flat and marshy plains. ”

“ III. For the purposes of our present inquiry, I would class together as Highlands all the higher, more rugged, and mountainous ground, which differs on the whole from the uplands, not only in its greater elevation, but in the more irregular rocky forms of its surface, the narrower crests of its ridges, and the more peaked shapes of its summits. The geological structure of these tracts of country is generally so complicated that it gives rise to much greater variety of outline than is to be found in either of the other types of scenery. ”

“ Far over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain, spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. ”

“ An excursion into the west made me fall in love with the forest, the mountains, solitude and independence. I've always taken enough furs for a good living, and I'm absolutely my own master. Moreover, I'm an explorer and it gives me a keen pleasure to find a new river or a new mountain. And this northwest is filled with wonders. After we find the gold and my beaver colony, I'm going to write a book of a thousand pages about the wonders I've seen. ”

“ Captain Mayne Reid "The Scalp Hunters"
Chapter One. The Wild West.
Unroll the world’s map, and look upon the great northern continent of America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away beyond many a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them there.
You are looking upon a land whose features are un-furrowed by human hands, still bearing the marks of the Almighty mould, as upon the morning of creation; a region whose every object wears the impress of God’s image. ”

“ Having gazed till weary at this painful picture of the weakness of human nature, I turned to the north-eastward, and there burst upon my sight a most enchanting view. In the far east, that is, some twenty or five-and-twenty miles away, stretched a lofty chain of mountains, flat-topped and so regular in their outline that they appeared rather the work of art than of nature. Between this range and the nearest one lay a large rich valley vying with the most fertile I have ever seen in an extra-tropical country. ”

“ The widely-famed Far West is not to be compared with even the tamest portions of Scotland or Wales. You stand upon the prairie, and see the unbroken horizon all round you. You are on a great plain, which is like a sea without water. I am exceedingly fond of wild and lonely scenery, and believe that I have the faculty of being as much impressed by it as any man living. But the prairie fell, by far, short of my preconceived idea. I felt no such emotions as I do in crossing Salisbury Plain. ”

“ Almost through the middle, trending north-westerly and south-easterly, stretched the great Backbone of the continent, the Shining Mountains, or, as we now call them, the Rocky Mountains, with many peaks reaching up beyond the timber-line and into the realm of perpetual snow, peaks now familiar under the names of early explorers like Pike, Long, James, Frémont, etc., and whose meandering crest composed the Continental Divide, casting the rains on one side into the broad Pacific, and on the other side into the tides that laved the shores of Europe. ”

“ The depth of the valleys, the steepness of the mountain-sides, the variety of aspect shown by their summits, the deep gulfs of forest below, seamed with the open courses of rivers, the vast extent of the mountain region seen north and south of us, gleaming with many lakes, took me with surprise and astonishment. Imagine the forests to be shorn from half the broad declivities—imagine scattered habitations on the thick green turf and footpaths leading from one to the other, and herds and flocks browzing, and you have Switzerland before you. ”

“ The grand and rugged landscapes of Northern Europe, the midnight sun, the flashing rays of the aurora borealis, the ocean continually lashing itself into fury against the great cliffs and icebergs of the arctic circle, could not but impress the people as vividly as the almost miraculous vegetation, the perpetual light, and the blue seas and skies of their brief summer season. ”

“ All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye. ”

“ From the base of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, the Continent of British America slopes towards North and East, until, unbroken by one mountain summit, but in a profound and lasting desolation, it dips its shaggy arms and ice-bound capes into a sea as drear and desolate. ”

“ Beyond the Sault, the fascinations of the west beckoned like a siren. Vast waterways, where a dozen European kingdoms could be dropped into one lake without raising a sand-bar, seemed to sweep on forever and call with the voice of enchantress to the very ends of the earth. With the purple recesses of the shore on one side and the ocean-expanse of Lake Superior on the other, all the charms of clean, fresh freedom were unveiling themselves to me and my blood began to quicken with that fevered delight, which old lands are pleased to call western enthusiasm. ”

“ The country on the east side is one boundless rough and barren plain; but on the west, the rocks, after some distance, close in to the water’s edge, steep and rugged, and the whole country behind is studded with towering heights and rocks, giving the whole face of the country, in that direction, a bleak, broken, and mountainous appearance. ”

“ I was in the society of gentlemen whose lives had been passed in all portions of the great north, on the frozen shores of Hudson’s Bay, in the mountain fastnesses of the Chipewyan range, or midst the savage solitudes that lie where, in long, low-lying capes, and ice-piled promontories, the shore of America stretches out to meet the waves of the Northern Ocean. ”

“ The mountain-chain which, rising to a height of five or six thousand feet, forms the backbone of the peninsula, serves as the boundary of two distinct worlds, for while the northern slopes are bleak and treeless like Iceland, the southern shores are covered from the water’s edge with magnificent forests. ”

“ The men who went out to the North-west as voyageurs and servants in the employment of the rival companies from Canada and from Scotland hardly ever returned to their native lands. The wild roving life in the great prairie or the trackless pine forest, the vast solitudes of inland lakes and rivers, the chase, and the camp-fire had too much of excitement in them to allow the voyageur to return again to the narrow limits of civilization. ”

“ West and south-west into the unknown must he go who follows the lure of those peaceful, sunny glades where there are no hills, no valleys, nothing save trees and trees and trees again, and shallow streams with jungle edging them, and lonely lakes set with cypress, and sunny clearings, never made by human hands, where last year's grass, shoulder-high, silvers under the white sun of the South. ”

“ Three times now I have ranged the great West in fancy, as I did in fact for twenty years, and gathered unknown and unnamed blossoms from mountain-top, from desert level, where man never ranged before, and asked the world to receive my weeds, my grasses, and blue-eyed blossoms. ”

“ The sight of the North through the open door had sobered and awed him, as it awes all men who know its power. Beyond lay only the edge of the forest and the snow-swept barrens, stretching down to a gray and desolate sea. ”

“ A glance at the map will show innumerable rivers finding their way into the sea along the whole east and north coasts of the colony, and it is the country which forms the watersheds of these rivers which is spoken of as the coast. West and south of this bordering tract lies the great central plateau, which is mainly a huge plain, where the surface, which sometimes rises into rolling downs and sometimes spreads out in apparently limitless flats, is only broken by a few ranges of low hills. ”

“ Our journey northward had been an ascent but now the world's steep sloped downward before us into sunshine and warmer air. In ascending the Andes or the Himalayas, you pass through all climates and belts of vegetation between the Equator and the Pole, and so a journey due north, beyond the circle of the sun, simply reverses the phenomenon, and impresses one like the ascent of a mountain on the grandest possible scale. ”

“ You have thus, easily and clearly memorable, twelve countries, distinct evermore by natural laws, and forming three zones from north to south, all healthily habitable—but the races of the northern-most, disciplined in endurance of cold; those of the central zone, perfected by the enjoyable suns alike of summer and winter; those of the southern zone, trained to endurance of heat. ”

“ Let the reader look on the map, at the ranges of mountains running from the north-east to the southwest—the Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies, the Cumberland, and Pine mountains, continuous rocky ridges, with scarcely a water gap, and only at long intervals a passable mountain gap—and notice how these would both hinder and deflect the tide of emigration. ”

“ As far as the eye could reach to the south-south-east and south-west was one vast level expanse of magnificent feeding ground, and at our feet a running stream, which we could trace far out into the distance. ”

“ From this region westward the highlands increase in elevation, the valleys become narrower, steeper and cooler, and the landscape progressively assumes the wilder features which belong to what is distinctly meant by "the mountain country." ”

“ The plains here stretch in illimitable expanse to the horizon. Far to the west is a range of mountain, forty good miles away, which, in the clear morning air, stands out as sharply as if but a dozen miles distant. ”

“ The Highlands consist of an old dissected plateau, or block, of ancient crystalline rocks with incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and by ice, the resulting topography being a wide area of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have nearly the same height above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places. ”

“ Then what shall we say of the wide West—until recently an unknown region—with its variety of natural wonders, its wild mountains, appalling peaks and lonely valleys, industries, mines of wealth, gorges, streams, plains! It is grand, notwithstanding its development is yet in its infancy. Its possibilities for future greatness are inconceivable even to the hardy pioneer. ”

“ From our position, and embracing an angle of fully one hundred and thirty degrees, or, in other words, from the northwest round to south, a boundless and nearly level expanse of country could be taken in at a glance, the only breaks being the great valleys of Peace and Smoky rivers, than which nothing we had ever seen could be more beautiful, the former especially, in its magnitude and depth, surpassing all we had anticipated. ”

“ To understand clearly the nature of the country, let us suppose ourselves standing on the banks of the Red River, looking west. In front we have the fertile belt stretching out before, us, consisting chiefly of rich level prairie land, ascending gradually towards the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ It is strange, too, that, when you are in the far north, you do not look towards the south until the north turns an iron hand upon you and refuses the hospitality of food and fire; your eyes are drawn towards the Pole by that charm—deadly and beautiful—for which men have given up three points of the compass, with their pleasures and ease, to seek a grave solitude, broken only by the beat of a musk-ox’s hoofs, the long breath of the caribou, or the wild cry of the puma. ”

“ Driving across country, either eastward or westward, you go up and up in leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly level resting places between, up long calm shoulder after shoulder, to the Height of Land. And 4 there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before you and below you, behold a whole new countryside framed by new hills.
Sometimes the lower country thus revealed is in its turn broken into lesser hills, or moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes there are stretches of intervale or old lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare beauty with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. ”