Introduction 
bitterest experiences of his life, combined to 
send him on the long journey recorded in these 
pages. 
Some autobiographical notes found among 
his papers furnish interesting additional de- 
tails about the period between his release from 
the dark room and his departure for the South. 
“ As soon as I got out into heaven’s light,” he 
says, “I started on another long excursion, 
making haste with all my heart to store my 
mind with the Lord’s beauty, and thus be ready 
for any fate, light or dark. And it was from 
this time that my long, continuous wanderings 
may be said to have fairly commenced. I bade 
adieu to mechanical inventions, determined to 
devote the rest of my life to the study of the 
inventions of God. I first went home to Wis- 
consin, botanizing by the way, to take leave of 
my father and mother, brothers and sisters, all 
of whom were still living near Portage. I also 
visited the neighbors I had known as a boy, 
renewed my acquaintance with them after an 
absence of several years, and bade each a formal 
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