The region was, in one sense, wild, though it offered a picture that
was not without some of the strongest and most pleasing features of
civilization. The country was what is termed "rolling," from some
fancied resemblance to the surface of the ocean, when it is just
undulating with a long "ground-swell."

Although wooded, it was not, as the American forest is wont to grow,
with tail straight trees towering toward the light, but with
intervals between the low oaks that were scattered profusely over
the view, and with much of that air of negligence that one is apt to
see in grounds where art is made to assume the character of nature.
The trees, with very few exceptions, were what is called the "burr-
oak," a small variety of a very extensive genus; and the spaces
between them, always irregular, and often of singular beauty, have
obtained the name of "openings"; the two terms combined giving their
appellation to this particular species of native forest, under the
name of "Oak Openings."

These woods, so peculiar to certain districts of country, are not
altogether without some variety, though possessing a general
character of sameness. The trees were of very uniform size, being
little taller than pear-trees, which they resemble a good deal in
form; and having trunks that rarely attain two feet in diameter. The
variety is produced by their distribution. In places they stand with
a regularity resembling that of an orchard; then, again, they are
more scattered and less formal, while wide breadths of the land are
occasionally seen in which they stand in copses, with vacant spaces,
that bear no small affinity to artificial lawns, being covered with
verdure. The grasses are supposed to be owing to the fires lighted
periodically by the Indians in order to clear their hunting-grounds.