The Pirates of the Prairies: Adventures in the American Desert

The present is the second of the series of Indian tales, commencing with the Trail-Hunter, and which will be completed in one more volume, entitled the Trapper's Daughter. It must be understood, however, that each of these volumes is complete in itself, although the characters already introduced to the reader are brought on the stage again, and continue their surprising adventures through succeeding works. For this, Gustave Aimard can quote the example of his predecessor, Fenimore Cooper, whose Deer Slayer, appears in a long succession of volumes, not necessarily connected, but which all repay perusal. I believe that few who have commenced with one volume of Cooper's Indian tales, but have been anxious to follow the hero through the remainder of his adventures; and I sincerely trust that a perusal of the Pirates of the Prairies may lead to a demand for the other volumes by the same author, which have already appeared, and for those which have still to follow.
LASCELLES WRAXALL.
Two months have elapsed since we left the Trail-Hunter commencing his adventurous journey, and we are in the heart of the desert. Before us immensity is unfolded. What pen, however eloquent, would venture to describe those illimitable oceans of verdure to which the North Americans have in their imagery, given the poetic and mysterious name of the Far West? That is to say, the truly unknown region, with its scenes at once grand and striking, soft and terrible; unbounded prairies in which may be found that rich and luxuriant Flora, against whose magic growth only the Indian can successfully struggle.
These plains, at the first glance, offer the dazzled eye of the rash traveller who ventures on them a vast carpet of verdure embossed with flowers, furrowed by large streams; and they appear of a desperate regularity, mingling in the horizon with the azure of the sky.
It is only by degrees, when the sight grows accustomed to the picture, that, gradually mastering the details, the visitor notices here and there rather lofty hills, the escarped sides of the water courses, and a thousand unexpected accidents which agreeably break that monotony by which the eye is at first saddened, and which the lofty grass and the giant productions of the Flora completely conceal.