4 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



mit that these notes are neither so complete nor of such 

 importance as I could wish, but it may easily be seen in 

 them that the putting-together of a book of travels was 

 not really my object. To be candid, the motive of my 

 journey was curiosity not altogether blameworthy, it 

 is to be hoped. From June 1777 to July 1783 I had 

 lived in America without seeing more than the small 

 Rhode-Island, York-Island, an inconsiderable part of 

 Long-Island, and for a very brief space the narrow 

 compass of the city of Philadelphia, so that strictly I 

 could hardly boast of having set foot on the main-land. 

 It would have been irksome to me, and likely to other 

 travellers as well, to be obliged to return to the old 

 world without taking with me, for my own satisfaction, 

 a somewhat more enlarged visual acquaintance with 

 the new. But at the same time, and especially, I wished 

 to extend in the interior of the country the collecting 

 of natural products I had begun on the coast but which, 

 by reason of the war, was restricted, and embarrassed 

 enough. However, I was considerably checked in my 

 purposes, the time allowed me for the journey falling 

 in the circumstances at a late season of the year, and 

 other unavoidable casualties rendering my hopes idle in 

 many respects, so that I was very much deceived in 

 my great expectations of examining the most remark- 

 able natural productions of the interior country. Here 

 as elsewhere, both plants and animals are little ready 

 to cast themselves in the way of a hurried traveller, 

 when, where and how he desires, he not seeking them 

 out and unwilling or unable to wait for them. I have 



