X 
PREFACE. 
from the pursuit of the Indian, armed with bow and 
arrow, alone seemed wanting to realize the savage land- 
scape as it appeared to the first settlers of the country. 
Scenes like these have little attraction for ordinary 
life, but to the naturalist it is far otherwise; privations 
to him are cheaply purchased, if he may but roam over 
the wild domain of primeval nature, and behold 
“Another Flora there, of bolder hues, 
And richer sweets, beyond our garden’s pride.’’ 
How often have I realized the poet’s buoyant hopes 
amidst these solitary rambles through interminable fo- 
rests. For thousands of miles my chief converse has 
been in the wilderness with the spontaneous productions 
of Nature; and the study of these objects and their con- 
templation has been to me a source of constant delight. 
This fervid curiosity led me to the banks of the Ohio, 
through the dark forests and brakes of the Mississippi, 
to the distant lakes of the northern frontier; through the 
wilds of Florida; far up the Red River and the Missou- 
ri, and through the territory of Arkansa; at last over 
the 
“Vast savannahs, where the wandering eye, 
Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost.” 
And now across the arid plains of the far west, be- 
yond the steppes of the Rocky Mountains, down the 
Oregon to the extended shores of the Pacific, across the 
distant ocean to that famous group of islands* where 
Cook at length fell a sacrifice to his temerity. And 
here for the first time, I beheld the beauties of a tropi- 
cal vegetation; a season that knows no change; but that 
of perpetual spring and summer: an elysian land, where 
Nature offers spontaneous food to man. The region of 
* Sandwich islands. 
