In this book the writer has aimed at sketching several distinct varieties of the human race, as true to the governing impulses of their educations, habits, modes of thinking and natures.  The red man had his morality, as much as his white brother, and it is well known that even Christian ethics are coloured and governed, by standards of opinion set up on purely human authority.  The honesty of one Christian is not always that of another, any more than his humanity, truth, fidelity or faith.  The spirit must quit its earthly tabernacle altogether, ere it cease to be influenced by its tints and imperfections.

Chapter I.

  “An acorn fell from an old oak tree,
  And lay on the frosty ground—­
  ‘O, what shall the fate of the acorn be?’
  Was whispered all around
  By low-toned voices chiming sweet,
  Like a floweret’s bell when swung—­
  And grasshopper steeds were gathering fleet,
  And the beetle’s hoofs up-rung.”

  Mrs. Seba Smith.

There is a wide-spread error on the subject of American scenery.  From the size of the lakes, the length and breadth of the rivers, the vast solitudes of the forests, and the seemingly boundless expanse of the prairies, the world has come to attach to it an idea of grandeur; a word that is in nearly every case, misapplied.  The scenery of that portion of the American continent which has fallen to the share of the Anglo-Saxon race, very seldom rises to a scale that merits this term; when it does, it is more owing to the accessories, as in the case of the interminable woods, than to the natural face of the country.  To him who is accustomed to the terrific sublimity of the Alps, the softened and yet wild grandeur of the Italian lakes, or to the noble witchery of the shores of the Mediterranean, this country is apt to seem tame, and uninteresting as a whole; though it certainly has exceptions that carry charms of this nature to the verge of loveliness.

Of the latter character is the face of most of that region which lies in the angle formed by the junction of the Mohawk with the Hudson, extending as far south, or even farther, than the line of Pennsylvania, and west to the verge of that vast rolling plain which composes Western New York.  This is a region of more than ten thousand square miles of surface, embracing to-day, ten counties at least, and supporting a rural population of near half a million of souls, excluding the river towns.

All who have seen this district of country, and who are familiar with the elements of charming, rather than grand scenery it possesses, are agreed in extolling its capabilities, and, in some instances, its realities.  The want of high finish is common to everything of this sort in America; and, perhaps we may add, that the absence of picturesqueness as connected with the works of man, is a general defect; still, this particular region, and all others resembling it—­ for they abound on the wide surface of the twenty-six states—­has beauties of its own, that it would be difficult to meet with in any of the older portions of the earth.