454 The Wilderness Htmtei^ 



time hunters ever tried to write of what they had seen 

 and done ; and of those who made the effort fewer still 

 succeeded. Innate refinement and the literary faculty — 

 that is, the faculty of writing a thoroughly interesting and 

 readable book, full of valuable information — may exist 

 in uneducated people ; but if they do not, no amount of 

 experience in the field can supply their lack. However, 

 we have had some good works on the chase and habits 

 of big game, such as Caton's Deer and Antelope of 

 America, Van Dyke's Still-Hunter, Elliott's Carolina 

 Sports, and Dodge's Htuiting Grounds of the Great 

 West, besides the Century Company's Sport with Rod 

 and Gun. Then there is Catlin's book, and the journals 

 of the explorers from Lewis and Clarke down ; and occa- 

 sional volumes on outdoor life, such as Theodore Win- 

 throp's Canoe and Saddle, and Clarence King's Mountain- 

 eering in the Sierra Nevada. 



Two or three of the great writers of American liter- 

 ature, notably Parkman in his Oregon Trail and, with 

 less interest, Irving in his Trip on the Prairies have 

 written with power and charm of life in the American 

 wilderness ; but no one has arisen to do for the far west- 

 ern plainsmen and Rocky Mountain trappers quite what 

 Hermann Melville did for the South Sea whaling folk in 

 Omoo and Moby Dick. The best description of these 

 old-time dwellers among the mountains and on the plains 

 is to be found in a couple of good volumes by the Eng- 

 lishman Ruxton. However, the backwoodsmen proper, 

 both in their forest homes and when they first began to 

 venture out on the prairie, have been portrayed by a master 



