On my return, a short time since, to my native land, from the wilds of America, it was not at first my intention to offer to the public the contents of the diary I had kept during my travels, and written out in detail as an employment for my leisure hours, for the exclusive use of my family in Germany. Incited, however, by the interest awakened by the publication of a few extracts in one of our periodicals, and yielding to the wishes expressed by various friends who had read the remainder, I undertook to correct and revise my notes, and to mould into a continuous narrative a diary which I had only kept when circumstances worthy of being chronicled arose,—for instance, on the voyage out, on my march through the United States, during my sojourn among the swamps of Arkansas, and finally during my hunting trip in the Ozark mountains. I have endeavored faithfully to portray the social condition of the Americans, in so far as it came under my observation, and many a reader, while turning over But should any inveterate sportsman, with an imagination heated by the description of these scenes, excited by the dangers and difficulties of the enterprise, depart to the far West, to experience similar adventures, let him remember, when wet, hungry, alone, and a prey to mosquitoes, he lies stretched in the untrodden forest, longing in vain for a fire, and for the society of men; or when he has been following the tracks of the deer for days together, without the chance of a single shot, until he can almost persuade himself that the tales he The chase in the United States is, moreover, rapidly on the decline; for the American hunter spares nothing, and for some time, particularly since the day when skins were first paid for in hard dollars, a war of extermination has been waged against the poor stags and bears;—so that the hunter who, some five years hence, shall visit these realms, will scarcely find his expectations of sport realized, unless he is prepared either to content himself with small game, or to penetrate to the Rocky Mountains, and explore the territory of the Indians. With the concluding request to my readers, to remember that these pages are penned by a man who, so to speak, has but just emerged from the forest, and who relates his experiences to his friends at home, not caring for the fact that he might, perhaps, by adopting a different method, have told his story with more effect, this diary is submitted to the kind consideration of the public, by The Author. |