Inland

“ Hither the inhabitants of the inland parts come to be supplied with what they cannot make for themselves: Hither the young nymphs of the mountains and valleys are sent for education, and as far as my observation has reached, are not sent in vain. ”

“ The beauties of the Inland Sea have been so often and so graphically described, that detailed praise is superfluous. Every one has heard of the thousands of islets, on which are perched villages, villas, and pines innumerable; of the hillsides, geometrically subdivided into rice-fields ”

“ While the wilderness is being populated and cleared, the coastal and inland towns frow and ports open their docks to the whole world's ships. The continent itself is already divided into several different states or colonies, chambers and even its own particular economy. ”

“ Indeed many hindrances oppose themselves to the perfect discovery of these inland regions, besides those common obstacles, to encounter and overcome which every traveller who desires to explore new, wild, and savage countries, must have fully made up his mind. ”

“ If the city is on the sea, we should choose ground close to the harbour as the place where the forum is to be built; but if inland, in the middle of the town. ”

“ Boys and girls among Southern bayous should be taught the traditions of their region, of the Indians and Creoles who made history there when that section was a province of France; while along Northern lake and inland river are tales of forest folk, of pathfinder and black-robed message bringer, of knights of the Old World come to seek fortune in the New, that are a part of the heritage of every youth living there. ”

“ As the little village and shore line faded away, we wished an artist could have caught the view. We sailed out into the finest part of the Inland Sea, where the shore was deeply indented with rocky promontories, which first ended in a high projection to our right ”

“ Farther inland there are more of the great pastures, and in the extreme north a prosperous agriculture and a beginning of tropical industry, which afford a pleasant contrast to all that we have seen before. ”

“ The mountains of both mainland and islands are thoroughly picturesque, with rugged upper members topped out in sharp points and rocky pinnacles, such as are seen nowhere in the old states of our country and but rarely in the new ones or in any of the old Territories. ”

“ The Island lay in a land-locked Bay of the great Continent, encompassed on all sides by its Highlands. The little hills, which its inhabitants called mountains, were girt around by the magnificent mountain-ranges of the Main Land. Its colonial settlements, which the dwellers in them called cities, were commanded from the other side by the glorious cities of [Pg 126] the kingdom. Its islanders, who called themselves "the world," were compassed about by the victorious ones now at home in the great true world across the waters. ”

“ We were in a region of adventure; breaking our way through a country hitherto untrodden by white men, excepting perchance by some solitary trapper. The weather was in its perfection, temperate, genial and enlivening; a deep blue sky with a few light feathery clouds, an atmosphere of perfect transparency, an air pure and bland, and a glorious country spreading out far and wide in the golden sunshine of an autumnal day; but all silent, lifeless, without a human habitation, and apparently without a human inhabitant! ”

“ On the main coast, and those on lonely isles;
Forms that diverged, and yet were closely akin.
One key, one only, unlocked the mystery there.
Unless God made, for every separate isle
As it arose, new tribes of plants, birds, beasts,
In variant images of the tribes He set
Upon their nearest continent, grading all
By time, and place, and distance from the shore,
The bond between them was the bond of blood.
All, all had branched from one original tree.
I saw him off the Patagonian coast
Staring at something stranger than a dream. ”

“ Of the travellers who passed over the vast stretches of prairie or mountain or woodland, many saw the possibilities of this vast land, and prophesied as to what might be wrought here, when, in the dim and distant future, which none could yet foresee, settlements should have pushed out from the east and occupied the land. ”

“ During my absence I expect to visit a region of country as yet unseen by human eyes, except those of the Indian—a country described by the latter as abounding in game of all varieties, rich in scientific interest, and of surpassing beauty in natural scenery. Bidding adieu to civilization for the next few months, I also now take leave of my readers, who I trust, in accompanying me through my retrospect, have been enabled to gain a true insight into a cavalryman’s “Life on the Plains.” ”

“ They saw what every Westerner sees to-day,—illimitable reaches of prairie and ravine, forested hills sloping to mighty rivers, and open meadow-lands watered by streams looped like a ribbon. They saw a land waiting for its people, wealth waiting for possessors, an empire waiting for the nation builders. ”

“ This was our condition when the pale-faces landed upon the eastern shores of this great island. Every nation has its destiny. We now behold our once extensive domains reduced to a few acres; our territory, which once required the fleetest moons to traverse, is now spanned by the human voice. ”

“ We had now gone over a great territory of prairie; and the brief history of our travels has perhaps given the reader a faint idea of the nature of the country and the occupations of the people. But the whole country,—the climate, the inhabitants, and their occupations,—is so different from the states—as called by western men—that it is difficult, even with the most minute description, to conceive of the great country of the plains as it really is without visiting this curious land. ”

“ Anne. Pray, mamma, is not a continent one of the divisions of the land?
Mrs. Harley. Yes, my dear; for after we have divided the whole globe into land and water, we again subdivide the land into Continents, Islands, Peninsulas, Isthmusses, and Promontories,—the water into Oceans, Seas, Straits, Gulfs, Bays, Lakes, Rivers, and Creeks.
A Continent is a large tract of land containing several countries which are not separated by seas; as Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.
An Island, is a tract of land entirely surrounded by water, as Britain, Ireland, Sicily, &c. ”

“ On the north, at a great distance, I saw a tract of low and flat country, which, in my opinion, was the vale of some great river, and beyond this, at the farthest stretch of vision, the eye was lost in the blue transparent vault, where the extremity of the arch of the world touches the abode of perpetual winter. Turning westward, the view passed beyond the region of pine-trees, which was followed afar off by naked and leafless oaks, hickories, and walnuts ”

“ It is a cool, green spot up yonder; the rain descends upon it in continual baptism. The natives love these mountains and the sea. They are the cardinal points of their compass. Every direction given you is either toward the mountain or toward the sea. ”

“ From the timid and tentative adventurings out from the Atlantic sea coast into the unknown western wilderness, two distinct and diverse lines of thought and purpose characterize two separate and independent movements of population to take possession of the vast unknown West. ”

“ One unacquainted with a new country would often make great mistakes by charting nearly everything as main land, where portions of it might be islands, failing also to give proper depths of inlet coast, unless he had time to visit every locality. On my present trip up the bay I had not that time, and therefore I reserved—to be made, if possible, on my return—a closer examination of places now draughted down under my eyes. ”

“ If you study your maps carefully, you will notice lofty mountains, great lakes, and long rivers in many parts of the country; and you will see that it is beautiful and fertile almost everywhere, except in the far north, where snow covers the ground most of the year.
The same wise men who found out that the country is so old, dug down into the soil, examined the things they found there, questioned the Indians, and, little by little, discovered that our continent has been inhabited by many different kinds of animals and men. ”

“ The sight of the North through the open door had sobered and awed him, as it awes all men who know its power. Beyond lay only the edge of the forest and the snow-swept barrens, stretching down to a gray and desolate sea. ”

“ Land of exquisite homeliness and order; land of town that is country, of country that is town; land of a hundred classes all deftly interwoven and all waxing to one class—England. Land encrowned with the gifts of peaceful days—days that live in thy face and the faces of thy children. ”

“ I have carefully observed the progress of events in the other colonies and am satisfied the coast line north will shortly be settled, & it will be short sighted policy on our parts, to allowwothers the benefits, (if any) in the occupation of Lands, that we are justly entitled to. ”

“ Leaving behind us the crowded cities, the dusky tribes, the deep skies and burning plains of India, let us cross the Black Water, and return to the little island of the West, whence the hands that have subdued these strange regions and the minds—many of the greatest of them, alas! ”

“ It was, however, when gazing in the direction of the south, where the King Country lay stretched for miles before us in all the wide, rich beauty of a virgin country, that the grandest natural scenery burst upon the view, and charmed the imagination with the thought of a bright future. ”

“ The cold was hardly gone, when I again embarked on the Fine River; and in my course I met with several nations, with whom I generally staid but one night, till I arrived at the nation that is but one day’s journey from the Great Water on the West. This nation live in the woods, about the distance of a league from the river, from their apprehension of bearded men, who come upon their coasts in floating villages, and carry off their children to make slaves of them. ”

“ On the west, a hill-country, swelling like waves, with these villages sometimes discovered among them. On the east it looks dim and blue, and affects the beholder like the sea, as the eye stretches far away. ”

“ I have always rejoiced in the thought, that our native highland scenery, though, perhaps, wanting in sublimity, is distinguished by a delicate finish in its details, and by a unanimity and propriety of feeling in the works of its inhabitants, which are elsewhere looked for in vain; and the reason of this is evident. The mind of the inhabitant of the continent, in general, is capable of deeper and finer sensations than that of the islander. ”

“ EXTRACT. "You know the position of our settlement; therefore I need not describe it. To the west it is enclosed by a chain of mountains, reaching to——. To the east, the country is yet but very thinly inhabited. We are almost insulated, and the houses are at a considerable distance from each other. From the mountains we have but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy, the Indians; and the wilderness is a harbour, where it is impossible to find them. It is a door through which they can enter our country at any time ”

“ After a few swift miles of country whose old walls, well-groomed meadows, and shapely forests gave a look of England, the land rose higher and higher, till the car swung out at last on a height commanding a river in the utmost contrast with England's stream. ”

“ And while the descendants of those who landed on her rocky coast have gone abroad, and amount to nearly five millions of souls, she holds on her way, with her soil trodden by the free, and the air of her mountains still breathed by a noble race of men. ”

“ The North invents, the South supplies the tools, the East the hands, the West the patrons and critics of the work, while out of the yellow heart of the city comes the gold, the incentive to the North, South, and East. ”

“ With the people of the south, by whom the opposite part of the earth is possessed, you have no intercourse; and by how small a tract do you communicate with the countries of the north? The territory which you inhabit is no more than a scanty island, inclosed by a small body of water, to which you give the name of the great sea and the Atlantick ocean. ”

“ When, in my journeys among the Indian tribes of Canada, I left European dwellings, and found myself, for the first time, alone in the midst of an ocean of forests, having, so to speak, all nature prostrate at my feet, a strange change took place within me. ”

“ The island lies just above the level of the sea, and has a dreary aspect. After passing its shores, the coast upon your right hand continues of the same low character, and wears the aspect of a complete wilderness. ”

“ Besides the uplift of the spirit that a wide horizon is apt to give, one is conscious here of the neighborhood of the sea, and of the possibilities of romantic adventure in a coast intersected by bayous, and the presence of novel forms of animal and vegetable life, and of a people with habits foreign and strange. ”

“ But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant’s nest to the spiry town, from the schoolhouse to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman’s boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghostlike on the horizon. ”

“ Peaceful farms and noble cities, towns and villages, thrilling with the hum of modern industry and activity, are spread over the vast spaces through which the explorers threaded their toilsome trail, amid incredible privations and hardships, showing the way westward across the boundless continent which is ours. ”

“ Plantations and pastures begin to appear as the train descends from the high ridges into the plain, and, great as is the altitude even here, on an island in this very lake, according to tradition, the remarkable native dynasty had its birth. ”

“ You have thus, easily and clearly memorable, twelve countries, distinct evermore by natural laws, and forming three zones from north to south, all healthily habitable—but the races of the northern-most, disciplined in endurance of cold; those of the central zone, perfected by the enjoyable suns alike of summer and winter; those of the southern zone, trained to endurance of heat. ”