Preface.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to give, in a series of picturesque sketches, a general view of the natural history as well as of the physical appearance of North and South America.

I have first described the features of the country; then its vegetation; and next the wild men and the brute creatures which inhabit it. However, I have not been bound by any strict rule in that respect, as my object has been to produce a work calculated to interest the family circle rather than one of scientific pretensions. I have endeavoured to impart, in an attractive manner, information about its physical geography, mineral riches, vegetable productions, and the appearance and customs of the human beings inhabiting it. But the chief portion of the work is devoted to accounts of the brute creation, from the huge stag and buffalo to the minute humming-bird and persevering termites,—introduced not in a formal way, but as they appear to the naturalist-explorer, to the traveller in search of adventures, or to the sportsman; with descriptions of their mode of life, and of how they are found, hunted, or trapped. I have described in the same way some of the most remarkable trees and plants; and from the accounts I have given I trust that a knowledge may be obtained of the way they are cultivated, and how their produce is prepared and employed. Thus I hope that, with the aid of the numerous illustrations in the work, a correct idea will be gained of the wilder and more romantic portions of the great Western World.

William H.G. Kingston.

Part 1—Chapter I.

North America.

Introductory.—Physical Features of North America.

The continent of America, if the stony records of the Past are read aright, claims to be the oldest instead of the newest portion of the globe. (According to some geologists, Labrador was the first part of our globe’s surface to become dry land.) Bowing to this opinion of geologists till they see cause to express a different one, we will, in consequence, commence our survey of the world and its inhabitants with the Western Hemisphere. From the multitude of objects which crowd upon us, we can examine only a few of the most interesting minutely; at others we can merely give a cursory glance; while many we must pass by altogether,—our object being to obtain a general and retainable knowledge of the physical features of the Earth, the vegetation which clothes its surface, the races of men who inhabit it, and the tribes of the brute creation found in its forests and waters, on its plains and mountains.

As we go along, we will stop now and then to pick up scraps of information about its geology, and the architectural antiquities found on it; as the first will assist in giving us an insight into the former conditions of extinct animals, and the latter may teach us something of the past history of the human tribes now wandering as savages in regions once inhabited by civilised men.

Still, the study of Natural History and the geographical range of animals is the primary object we have in view.

Though the best-known portions of the Polar Regions are more nearly connected with North America than with Europe or Asia, we propose to leave them to be fully described in another work. It is impossible, in the present volume, to embrace more than the continental parts of the Western World.

Looking down on the continent of North America, which we will first visit, we observe its triangular shape: the apex, the southern end of Mexico; the base, the Arctic shore; the sides, especially the eastern, deeply indented, first by Hudson Bay, which pierces through more than a third of the continent, then by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and further south by Chesapeake Bay and the Bay of Fundy. On the western coast, the Gulf of California runs 800 miles up its side, with the Rio Colorado falling into it; and further north are the Straits of Juan da Fuca, between Vancouver’s Island and the mainland, north of which are numerous archipelagoes and inlets extending round the great peninsula of Yukon to Kotzebue Sound.

Parallel with either coast we shall see two great mountain-systems—that called the Appalachian, including the chain of the Alleghanies, on the east, and the famed Rocky Mountains on the west—running from north to south through the continent.

We shall easily recollect the great water-system of North America if we consider it to be represented by an irregular cross, of which the Mississippi with its affluents forms the stem; Lake Superior and the River Saint Lawrence, including the intermediate lakes, the eastern arm; the Lake of the Woods and its neighbours, Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan, the western arm; and the northern lakes of Athabasca, the Great Slave Lake, and the Mackenzie River, the upper part of the cross. If we observe also a wide level region which runs north and south between the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, bounded on either side by the two lofty mountain ranges already mentioned, we shall have a tolerably correct notion of the chief physical features of the North American continent.

Arriving at the northern end, we shall find it reaching some four degrees north of the Polar Circle, though some of its headlands extend stilt further into the icy sea. Beyond it stretches away to an unknown distance towards the Pole a dense archipelago of large islands, the narrow channels between them bridged over in winter by massive sheets of ice, affording an easy passage to the reindeer, musk-oxen, and other animals which migrate southward during the colder portion of the Arctic winter.

Northern Region.

With that end of America will ever be associated the names of Sir John Franklin and his gallant companions, who perished in their search of the North-west Passage; as well as those of other more fortunate successors, especially of Captains McClure and Collinson of the British navy, to the first of whom is due the honour of leading an expedition from west to east along that icy shore; while Captain Collinson took his ship, the Enterprise, up to Cambridge Bay, Victoria Land, further east than any ship had before reached from the west—namely, 105 degrees west—and succeeded in extricating her from amid the ice and bringing her home in safety. Captain McClure, not so fortunate in one respect, was compelled to leave his ship frozen up. The two expeditions, while proving the existence of a channel, at the same time showed its uselessness as a means of passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as, except in most extraordinary seasons, it remains blocked up all the year by ice.

The northern end of the American continent is a region of mountains, lakes, and rivers. Several expeditions have been undertaken through it,—the first to ascertain the coast-line, by Mackenzie, Franklin, Richardson, Back, and others, and latterly by Dr Rae; and also by Sir John Richardson, who left the comforts of England to convey assistance to his long-missing former companions, though unhappily without avail. These journeys, through vast barren districts, among rugged hills, marshes, lakes, and rivers, in the severest of climates, exhibit in the explorers an amount of courage, endurance, and perseverance never surpassed. In the course of the rivers occur many dangerous falls, rapids, and cataracts, amid rocks and huge boulders, between which the voyagers’ frail barks make their way, running a fearful risk every instant of being dashed to pieces. Not a tree rears its head in the wild and savage landscape, the vegetation consisting chiefly of lichens and mosses. Among the former the tripe de roche is the most capable of supporting life. Here winter reigns with stern