YIU 



PEEPAOE. 



necessary for having devoted the first fifty pages to Physical 

 Geography, pm*o and simple. In like manner another fifty 



m 



pages at the end of the first volume have. been given to 

 Ethnology — to a terse account of ahoriginal tribes, well 

 worthy of study. As the different races of man are at the 

 present time occupying much public attention, this will, I 

 trust, be acceptable. 



I haA^e been in considerable perplexity as to the best way 

 of treating the bulk of my narrative, chiefly because it was 

 impossible to forget the fact, that whatever interest the book 

 might excite would be shared by the American as well as 

 the English reader. I have used many words which are 

 foreign to oui'selves ; I have often transgressed in like manner 

 the ordinary phraseology of our Atlantic cousins. I have 

 also borne in mind from the commencement, and indeed it 

 was impossible for an eye-witness to forget, that the country 

 of which I treat, though it is almost without tillage or inha- 

 bitants, is not like Africa, Central Asia, or even South 

 America, in being far removed from the present limits of 

 Anglo-Saxon occupation; but that it contains cradles for 

 nations which are destined to spring from our own hardy 

 and prolific stock, and that practical and special knowledge 



I 



about it is desired, in the first place, by the Americans then 



selves ; in the second place by oiu' own nation, supplying, ^ 



it does, at least two-thirds of the emigrating population 

 Europe. 



