PREFACE. 



ON* my return, a short time since, to my native land, 

 from the wilds of America, it was not at first my 

 intention to offer to the public the contents of the 

 diary I had kept during my travels, and written out in 

 detail as an employment for my leisure hours, for the 

 exclusive use of my family in Germany. Incited, 

 however, by the interest awakened by the publication 

 of a few extracts in one of our periodicals, and yielding 

 to the wishes expressed by various friends who had 

 read the remainder, I undertook to correct and revise 

 my notes, and to mould into a continuous narrative a 

 diary which I had only kept when circumstances 

 worthy of being chronicled arose, for instance, on the 

 voyage out, on my inarch through the United States, 

 during my sojourn among the swamps of Arkansas, 

 and finally during my hunting trip in the Ozark moun- 

 tains. 



I have endeavored faithfully to portray the social 

 condition of tin; Americans, in so tar as it came under 

 my observation, and many a reader, while turning over 



( Hi ) 



