IN THE

WILDS OF THE UNITED STATES

AND

British American Provinces.

BY

CHARLES LANMAN,

"

AUTHOR OF " ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS, ," "PRIVATE LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER," ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR AND OSCAR BESSAU.

"Without registering these things by the pen they will slide away unprofitably."-OwEN FELLTHAM,

WITH AN APPENDIX BY LIEUT. CAMPBELL HARDY.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

PHILADELPHIA:

JOHN W. MOORE, No. 195 CHESTNUT STREET.

1856.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

JOHN W. MOORE,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of

Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

THIS work is composed of materials which I have gathered within the last ten years, while performing occasional Tours into almost every nook and corner of the United States, and the neighboring British Provinces. It comprehends ample descriptions of the Valleys of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers, with the Basin of the Great Lakes, the entire Mountain-Land overlooking our Atlantic seaboard, and the Alluvial Region bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is indeed a kind of Cyclopedia of American Scenery and Personal Adventure, and of Traveling Incidents, calculated to exhibit the manners and customs of our people, and interest the lovers of Natural History and the various Arts of Sporting.

The several parts of the work, as they at present appear, were originally published in the journals and periodicals of the day, and subsequently in as many small volumes, which were all very kindly received by the public, both in this country and England. My chief channel of communication, however, as a Tourist, has been the National Intelligencer; but I have also written occasionally for the New York Observer, the New York Express, the Southern Literary Messenger, and Bentley's Magazine. Among those who have been my friends, and given me advice, and whose kindly offices I have acknowledged in brief Dedicatory Epistles, now thrown aside, are Messrs. Gales & Seaton, Hon. George P. Marsh, Professor Joseph Henry, William C. Bryant, Esq., Hon. John F. Crampton, and

Washington Irving, Esq. I mention these several names with pride and thankfulness, and can only hope that the unpretending literary career of their sometime pupil, will reflect no discredit upon their teachings. With regard to Mr. Irving, I would say that his delightful writings were the first to animate me with a natural, though in my case a daring spirit of emulation, but as I have, in the following letters, his sanction for my folly, I am quite contented. The first had reference to my traveling essays, as they were appearing at intervals, and the second was in answer to a petition for advice on the propriety of the present publication.

SUNNY SIDE.

My Dear Sir:-I would not reply to your very obliging letter of September 10th, until I had time to read the volumes which accompanied it. This, from the pressure of various engagements, I have. but just been able to do; and. I now return you thanks for the delightful entertainment which your summer rambles have afforded me. I do not see that I have any literary advice to give you, excepting to keep on as you have begun. You seem to have the happy, enjoyable humor of old Izaak Walton. I anticipate great success, therefore, in your Essays on our American Fishes, and on Angling, which I trust will give us still further scenes and adventures on our great internal waters, depicted with the freshness and graphic skill of your present volumes. In fact, the adventurous life of the angler, amidst our wild scenery, on our vast lakes and rivers, must furnish a striking contrast to the quiet loiterings of the English angler along the Trent or Dove; with country milk-maids to sing madrigals to him, and a snug, decent country inn at night, where he may sleep in sheets that have been laid in lavender.

With best wishes for your success, I am, my dear sir,

Very truly, your obliged

WASHINGTON IRVING..