Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked that it bears the
character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled like
the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in landscape
gardening. That the villas and castles seem to have been burnt, the
enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower gardens, the
stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of
art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make
picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than
the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of nature. Especially is this
true of the Rock river country. The river flows sometimes through these
parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs, whose grassy ridges are
covered with fine trees, or broken with crumbling stone, that easily
assumes, the forms of buttress, arch and clustered columns. Along the
face of such crumbling rocks, swallows' nests are clustered, thick as
cities, and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits. One morning,
out in the boat along the base of these rocks, it was amusing, and
affecting too, to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us.
There was something very hospitable about it, as if man had never shown
himself a tyrant near them. What a morning that was! Every sight is
worth twice as much by the early morning light. We borrow something of
the spirit of the hour to look upon them.

The first place, where we stopped was one of singular beauty, a beauty
of soft, luxuriant wildness. It was on the bend of the river, a place
chosen by an Irish gentleman, whose absenteeship seems of the wisest
kind, since for a sum which would have been but a drop of water to the
thirsty fever of his native land, he commands a residence which has all
that is desirable, in its independence, its beautiful retirement, and
means of benefit to others.