Reader, -I take for granted that you are tolerably well acquainted with the differentmodes of life and travelling peculiar to European nations. I also presume that youknow something of the inhabitants of the East; and, it may be, a good deal of theAmericans in general. But I suspect-at least I would fain hope-that you have only avague and indefinite knowledge of life in those wild, uncivilised regions of thenorthern continent of America that surround the shores of Hudson Bay. I wouldfain hope this, I say, that I may have the satisfaction of giving you information onthe subject, and of showing you that there is a body of civilised men who move, andbreathe (pretty cool air, by the way ), and spend their lives in a quarter of the globeas totally different, in most respects, from the part you inhabit, as a beaver, roaming among the ponds and marshes of his native home, is from that sagaciousanimal when converted into a fashionable ha.
