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.  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.

His park, his deer-chase, he found already prepared; he had only to make an avenue through it.  This brought us to the house by a drive, which in the heat of noon seemed long, though afterwards, in the cool of morning and evening, delightful.  This is, for that part of the world, a large and commodious dwelling.  Near it stands the log-cabin where its master lived while it was building, a very ornamental accessory.

In front of the house was a lawn, adorned by the most graceful trees.  A few of these had been taken out to give a full view of the river, gliding through banks such as I have described.  On this bend the bank is high and bold, so from, the house or the lawn the view was very rich and commanding.  But if you descended a ravine at the side to the water’s edge, you found there a long walk on the narrow shore, with a wall above of the richest hanging wood, in which they said the deer lay hid.  I never saw one but often fancied that I heard them rustling, at daybreak, by these bright, clear waters, stretching out in such smiling promise where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion, unless now and then this rustling, or the splash of some fish a little gayer than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven, or fuller expression of love and freedom, than in the mood of Nature here.