iv PREFACE. 



the pages of this work, will seek in vain the wonted 

 glowing descriptions of the riches and plenty which the 

 dwellers in the West are reputed to enjoy. It is true 

 that the American farmer commencing operations with 

 small means, may, by dint of very strenuous exertions, 

 realize an independence in a shorter time than would 

 suffice for this object in our old fatherland ; but, on the 

 other hand, he must be prepared to renounce every 

 thing that gladdened his heart in his native country — 

 and only too quickly will he discover that to wean 

 himself from the comforts to which he has been from 

 childhood accustomed, to quit the society and inter- 

 course of the civilized world, and to seek in a far land 

 a life of freedom indeed, but likewise of solitude and 

 privation, is a harder task than it at first appeared. 

 And not every man is sufficiently strong of heart to 

 bear the emigrant's lot without a murmur. 



But should any inveterate sportsman, with an imag- 

 ination heated by the description of these scenes, ex- 

 cited by the dangers and difficulties of the enterprise, 

 depart to the far West, to experience similar adventures, 

 let him remember, when wet, hungry, alone, and a prey 

 to mosquitoes, he lies stretched in the untrodden forest, 



longing in vain for a fire, and for the society of men ; 

 or when he has been following the tracks of the deer 

 for days together, without the chance of a single shot, 

 until he can ahnost persuade himself that the tales he 



