rong authority for the belief, that although the
maladies which have heretofore afflicted us, were partly imputable to
the climate, other, and more powerful causes of disease must have
existed, which have vanished. We who came to the frontier, while the axe
was still busy in the forest, and when thousands of the acres which now
yield abundance to the farmer, were unreclaimed and tenantless, have
seen the existence of our fellow citizens assailed by other than the
ordinary ministers of death. Toil, privation and exposure, have hurried
many to the grave; imprudence and carelessness of life, have sent crowds
of victims prematurely to the tomb. It is not to be denied that the
margins of our great streams in general, and many spots in the vicinity
of extensive marshes, are subject to bilious diseases; but it may be as
confidently asserted, that the interior country is healthy. Yet the
first settlers invariably selected the rich alluvion lands upon the
navigable rivers, in preference to the scarcely less fertile soil of the
prairies, lying in situations less accessible, and more remote from
market. They came to a wilderness in which houses were not prepared for
their reception, nor food, other than that supplied by nature, provided
for their sustenance. They often encamped on the margin of the river
exposed to its chilly atmosphere, without a tent to shelter, with
scarcely a blanket to protect them. Their first habitations were rude
cabins, affording scarcely a shelter from the rain, and too frail to
afford protection from the burning heat of the noonday sun, or the
chilling effects of the midnight blast. As their families increased,
another and another cabin was added, as crazy and as cheerless as the
first, until, admonished of the increase of their own substance, the
influx of wealthier neighbors, and the general improvement of the
country around them, they were allured by pride to do that to which they
never would have been impelled by suffering. The gratuitous exposure to
the climate, which the backwoodsman seems rather to court than avoid, is
a subject of common remark. No extremity of weather confines him to the
shelter of his own roof. Whether the object be business or pleasure, it
is pursued with the same composure amid the shadows of the night, or the
howling of the tempest, as in the most genial season. Nor is this trait
of character confined to woodsmen or to farmers; examples of hardihood
are contagious, and in thi