Mayne Reid

There is a great desert in the interior of North America. It is almost as large as the famous Sa ra of Africa. It is fifteen hundred miles long, and a thousand wide. Now, if it were of a regular shape-that is to say, a parallelogram-you could at once compute its area, by multiplying the length upon the breadth; and you would obtain one million and a half for the result-one million and a half of square miles. But its outlines are as yet very imperfectly known; and although it is fully fifteen hundred miles long, and in some places a thousand in breadth, its surface-extent is probably not over one million of square miles, or twenty-five times the size of England. Fancy a desert twenty-five times as big as all England Do you not think that it has received a most appropriate name when it is called the Great American Desert?

Boy reader, I am told that you are not tired of my company. Is this true? "Quite true, dear Captain, -quite true " That is your reply. You speak sincerely? I believe you do. In return, believe me, when I tell you I am not tired of yours; and the best proof I can give is, that I have come once more to seek you. I have come to solicit the pleasure of your company, -not to an evening party, nor to a ball, nor to the Grand Opera, nor to the Crystal Palace, nor yet to the Zoological Gardens of Regent's Park, -no, but to the great zoological garden of Nature. I have come to ask you to accompany me on another "campaign,"-another "grand journey" through the fields of Science and Adventure. Will you go? "Most willingly-with you, dear Captain, anywhere." Come with me, th

Go with me to the great river Mississippi. It is the longest river in the world. A line that would measure it would just reach to the centre of the earth, -in other words, it is four thousand miles in length. Go with me to this majestic river. I do not wish you to travel to its source; only as far up as Point Coup e, about three hundred miles from its mouth. There we shall stop for a while-a very short while-for we have a long journey to make. Our route lies to the far west-over the great prairies of Texas; and from Point Coup e we shall take our departure.