THE WOODS A3SD BY-WATS OF 

 NEW ENGLAKD. 



THE PEIMITIVE FOEEST. 



WHEN the Pilgrim first landed on the coast of America, 

 the most remarkable feature of its scenery that drew his 

 attention, next to the absence of towns and villages, was 

 an almost universal forest. A few openings were to be 

 seen near the rivers, immense peat-meadows covered 

 with wild bushes and gramineous plants, interspersed 

 with little wooded islets, and bordered on all sides by a 

 rugged, silent, and dreary desert of woods. Partial clear- 

 ings had likewise been made by the Indians for their 

 rude hamlets, and some spaces had been opened by fire. 

 But the greater part of the country was darkened by an 

 umbrageous mass of trees and shrubbery, in whose gloomy 

 shades were ever present dangers and bewilderment for 

 the traveller. In these solitudes the axe of the woodman 

 had never been heard, and the forest for thousands of years 

 had been subject only to the spontaneous action of natural 

 causes. To men who had been accustomed to the open 

 and cultivated plains of Europe, this waste of woods, 

 those hills without prospect, that pathless wilderness, 

 and its inhabitants as savage as the aspect of the coun- 

 try, must have seemed equally sublime and terrible. 



But when the colonists had cut roads through this 

 desert, planted landmarks over the country, built houses 



