restrained liberty. They are bold, hardy, manly, hospitable, generous, and kindhearted; while, at the same time, they are violent and vindictive in temper, reckless, improvident, often intemperate, and almost always without local attachment. They value their "locations" more for the facilities of hunting, and the exemption they afford from all restraint, than for the fertility the soil or their fitness for forming a family home. As the animals of the adjacent woods recede, and the wave of emigration reaches their boundaries, they are ready, like the aborigines, to dispose of their "improvements," and, without a sigh of regret for what they leave behind them, to seek a new home in the depths of the forest, The outskirts of civilization whereon they dwell, and the newly-settled territories of which they are in advance, present a wide field for the picturesque delineation of men and character, and the Americans have availed themselves of it with more skill, freedom, accuracy, and humour, than any strangers who have attempted it. The following sketches I found dispersed through a variety of local publications and the productions of the daily press. Of the latter, "The Spirit of the Times," a New York paper, devoted to sporting and humour, and sustained with singular ability, as well as at a vast expense, furnished many of the best articles. Of the former, though well known in the United States, but one or two have ever found their way to England, as they generally contained others of a less interesting or inferior character. I have, however, found the field, even restricted as it is to "the Byeways, Backwoods, and Prairies," more extensive than it at first appeared to be. There are classes and scenes of diversified interest yet untouched, the sketches of which I regret that I have not been able to compress within the prescribed limits of this work. |