Vi PREFATORY 



ences at first sight whicli might escape a traveler of 

 another and antagonistic race. He has brought with 

 him, but little modified or impaired, his whole in- 

 heritance 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 ancestors 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 " Brit- 

 ishers " do not deserve all the pleasant things I say 

 of them, why then so much the worse 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-ON-HuDSON, November, 1875. 



