Cecilia Sherman Letter

              he was and he said he would accompany us whether this 
meeting was accidental or whether he had been secretly instructed 
by Col. Sumner who had been at Lecompton on Saturday we 
don't know. We came through without molestation. The road 
from Lawrence here lies through the Delaware Reservation 
and it is the most beautiful country one can imagine. 
I thought what I had formerly seen of the territory was 
as fine as it could be but this surpasses it. There are thous- 
ands & thousands of acres miles in extent upon which you 
see no habitation, and often no living things but birds. 
I think one has a deeper sense of loneliness or solitude [written above or solitude] on these great 
uninhabited prairies than we would feel in dense forests 
of the same extent. I think probably the prairies are 
more beautiful now, covered as they are with the fresh 
green grass and such a variety of wild flowers, than they 
are when the grass is taller. It grows they say nearly as tall as a man's head. 
Leavenworth is much better built up than 
Lawrence and is still more beautifully situated than it. 
We are boarding at a private house, Mr. Keller's he formerly 
kept the hotel. At the time Phillips was tared and cottoned 
when he found some of his boarders was engaged in that affair 
he told then to walk up to the desk, settle their bills & leave his