Cather's language

"I slipped from under the buffalo hide,got up on my knees and peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating." Jim Burden describing Nebraska, Book One, My Antonia by Willa Cather.