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expand1997 (1)
1Author:  Hall James 1793-1868Add
 Title:  Tales of the border  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I was travelling a few years ago, in the northern part of Illinois, where the settlements, now thinly scattered, were but just commenced. A few hardy men, chiefly hunters, had pushed themselves forward in advance of the main body of emigrants, who were rapidly but quietly taking possession of the fertile plains of that beautiful state; and their cabins were so thinly scattered along the wide frontier, that the traveller rode many miles, and often a whole day together, without seeing the habitation of a human being. I had passed beyond the boundaries of social and civil subordination, and was no longer within the precincts of any organized country. I saw the camp of the Indian, or met the solitary hunter, wandering about with his rifle and his dog, in the full enjoyment of that independence, and freedom from all restraints, so highly prized by this class of our countrymen. Sometimes I came to a single log hut, standing alone in the wilderness, far removed from the habitations of other white men, on a delightful spot, surrounded by so many attractive and resplendent beauties of landscape, that a prince might have selected it as his residence; and again I found a little settlement, where a few families, far from all other civilised communities, enjoyed some of the comforts of society among themselves, and lived in a state approaching that of the social condition.
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