180 Miscellanies. 



i 



9 



of the author of the happy influence of his book upon the intimate 

 relations of the east and west will be fully realized. 



An extract from the preface will show the reasons which prompted 

 him to the work, and his claims as a historian, " He had devoted 

 the best portion of twelve years to exploring the western country. 

 He had remained, one or more seasons, in each of its great divisions. 

 He had been familiar with Cincinnati, St. Louis and New Orleans, 

 the points most central to the information and resources of their res- 

 pective divisions, and had resided in each of those capitals. He 

 had traversed this great valley in all its chief directions, in an em- 

 ployment which had necessarily brought him in contact with all 

 classes of its people and all its aspects of society. He had had 

 abundant communications with its scholars and distinguished men, and 

 as an earnest lover of nature, he had contemplated her in the West, 

 in her original dress and in all her phases. On foot and alone, he had 

 wandered beside the long and devious rivers. He had been between 

 two and three hundred days on the Mississippi and its tributary wa- 

 ters. He had published " Recollections" of these journeyings, which 

 had been received by the public with great kindness. His chief ef- 

 forts as an author had been directed to bringing the people of the west 

 acquainted with one another, and with the beauty and resources of 

 their own great country. He hopes it will not be deemed assump- 

 tion for him to say, that he has done something towards bringing 

 about an intimacy of good feelings between the elder sister, whose 

 fair domain is the east country, the fresh breeze and the shores of 

 the sea, and her younger sister, whose dotal portion is the western 

 woods and the fertile shores of the western streams. A kind of af- 

 fectionate feeling for the country where he has enjoyed and suffered 

 all that the human heart can be supposed capable of feeling on this 

 side of the grave, which contains his children, his charities, and all 

 those ties which call forth aspirations lor its well being, after he shall 

 be in the dust, enlisted his first purpose to commence this work. 

 The general amenity of the aspect of this country, of its boundless 

 woods and prairies, its long and devious streams, and its unparalleled 

 advancement in population and improvement, filled his imagination. 

 He had seen the country, in some sense, grow up under his eye. 

 He saw the first steam-boat that descended the Mississippi. He had 

 seen much of that transformation, as if of magic, which has convert- 

 ed the wilderness into fields and orchards. He has wished to trans- 

 for to others some of the impressions which have been wrought on 

 his own mind, by witnessing those chances." 



