iv PREFATORY. 



able him to discriminate subtle shades and differences 

 at first sight which might escape a traveler of another 

 and antagonistic race. He has brought with him, 

 but little modified or impaired, his whole inheritance 

 of English ideas and predilections, and much of 

 what he sees affects him like a memory. It is his 

 own past, his ante-natal life, and his long buried an- 

 cestors look through his eyes and perceive with his 

 sense. 



I have attempted only the surface, and to express 

 my own first day's uncloyed and unalloyed satisfac- 

 tion. Of course I have put these things through my 

 own processes and given them my own coloring (as 

 who would not), and if other travelers do not find 

 what I did, it is no fault of mine ; or if the " Britr 

 ishers " do not deserve all the pleasant things I say of 

 them, why then so much the worst for them. 



In fact, if it shall appear that I have treated this 

 part in the same spirit that I have the themes in the 

 other chapters, reporting only such things as im- 

 pressed me and stuck to me and tasted good, I shall 

 be satisfied. 



Esopus-ou-HuDSON, November, 1875. 



