Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/20

16 perhaps be first recognized upon this presentation of them in English form. Written "by the light of his lonely campfires, during brief moments snatched from short hours of repose, in the midst of hardships and often surrounded by dangers," their literary form is deficient, and frequent gaps occur, which doubtless were intended to be filled in at some future moments of leisure. This was prevented by the author's untimely death in the midst of his labors. For nearly a century the journals existed only in manuscript. In 1884 Charles S. Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, prepared the manuscript for the press, with explanatory notes chiefly on botanical matters. It was published in the original French, in the American Philosophical Society Proceedings, 1889, pp. 1-145.

From this journal of nearly eleven years' travel in America—from Florida on the south, to the wilds of the Hudson Bay country on the north, from Philadelphia and Charleston on the Atlantic coast to the most remote Western settlements, and the Indian lands of the Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee—we have selected for translation and inclusion within our series, the portions that concern particularly the trans-Allegheny region. These relate to the expedition made to Kentucky by way of the Ohio (1793), with the return over the Wilderness Road and through the Valley of Virginia; and the longer journey (1795-96) from Charleston to Tennessee, thence through Kentucky to the Illinois, and back by a similar route with side excursions on the great Western rivers. ————