| | 1 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | 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. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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