Early Western Travels, 1748-1846: A Series of Annotated Reprints of Some of the Best and Rarest Contemporary Volumes of Travel, Descriptive of the Aborigines and Social and Economic Conditions in the Middle and Far West, During the Period of Early American Settlement, Volume 12

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Reuben Gold Thwaites
A. H. Clark Company, 1905 - Mississippi River Valley
 

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Page 26 - The legislature of this government is vested in a senate and house of representatives. The members of the latter are elected every two years by the people ; the senators are appointed by the state legislatures, two being chosen by each state, for the term of six years.
Page 251 - Notes" to leave the Eastern parts where good employment was offered to them and to repair to the prairies. On arriving, he found none of the cottages ready for the reception of emigrants which his reading had led him to expect, nor any comforts whatever. He was hired however by Mr. Birkbeck, and got a log hut erected; but for six months the food left for his subsistence was only some reasty bacon and Indian corn, with water a considerable part of the time completely muddy; while Mr.
Page 148 - aided by a period of real privation and discontent in Europe, caused emigration to increase ten-fold; and though various reports of unfavorable nature soon circulated, and many who had emigrated actually returned to their native land in disgust, yet still the trading vessels were filled with passengers of all ages and descriptions, full of hope, looking forward to the West as to a land of liberty and delight — a land flowing...
Page 118 - Continent renders very unlikely; and because it was well worth while to incur a loss upon the first exportation, in order, by the glut, to stifle in the cradle those rising manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into existence, contrary to the natural course of things...
Page 168 - And what may your father do at other times?' ' He assists Mr. at the tavern there in the bar.
Page 99 - ... continually heated, insomuch that water would almost hiss on it; the atmosphere swarming with noxious insects, flies, bugs, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers, and withal so drying, that all animal and vegetable life is exposed to a continual process of exhaustion. The breezes, if any, are perfumed by nuisances of all sorts, emptied into the streets, rotting carcasses, and the exhalations of dismal swamps, made vocal and alive with toads, lizards, and bellowing bull-frogs.
Page 29 - have mentioned, very seldom fails to please " and to convince. His mind is so organized, " that he overcomes the difficulties of the most " abstruse and complicated subjects, apparently " without the toil of investigation, or the labour " of profound research. It is rich, and active, " and rapid, grasping at one glance, connections " the most distant, and consequences the most " remote, and breaking down the trammels of " error, and the cobwebs of sophistry. When " he rises to speak, he always commands...
Page 98 - The wind southerly, like the breath of an oven; the thermometer vacillating between 90 and 100; the sky blue and cloudless; the sun shedding a blazing light ; the face of the land, and every thing upon it, save trees, withered, dusty, baked, and continually...
Page 170 - States,) are treated with icorn,ea outcasts.' of heart and soul in every thing animating to other nations. I am just returned from witnessing the celebration of the anniversary of their Liberty, — such a festival might well be expected to call forth every spark of enthusiasm; but, even then, not an eye either of spectators or actors glistened with joy or animation, the latter seemed walking to a funeral; the others contemplating the melancholy ceremony ! Nothing could dispel the illusion but the...
Page 137 - Cling to thy home ! If there the meanest shed Yield thee a hearth and shelter for thy head, And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, Unsavoury bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow Wild on the river-brink or mountain-brow ; Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide More heart's repose than all the world beside.

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