n ancient race, long
anterior to the present race of Indians, concerning whom we have no
other record than that which is afforded by their mounds, earthworks,
fortifications, temples, and dwelling places. Even these cannot at first
be distinguished and identified the one from the other; and it takes a
person skilled in such lore to determine the character and uses of the
various mounds and groups of mounds, which he meets with at all points,
and in all directions, as he traverses the wilderness.

I have lived a long time in the woods and prairies, following the
occupation of a hunter, but with ulterior antiquarian and
natural-history objects and purposes. From the time when I first heard
of the mounds, which was in the year 1836, when I entertained, in my
chambers in New York, an old frontiersman from Chicago--a fine, brave
fellow, whose whole life was a romance of the highest and noblest
kind--I resolved that as soon as fortune should favor me with leisure
and opportunity, I would make a first-hand investigation of these
curious antiquities, and try if I could render an intelligent exposition
of their meaning. Twenty years passed away, and I was no nearer to the
accomplishment of my purpose than I was in that notable year 1836, when
the apocalypse of the West and its mystic mound seals were first
revealed to me. At last, about four years ago, all things being
favorable, I struck my tents in the big city--the wonderful Arabian
Nights city of New York!-and, taking a sorrowful leave of my friends and
literary associates, I set off for the region round about the Black
River in Wisconsin. Here, among the bluffs and forests, within hailing
distance of a prairie of some hundred thousand acres, I bought a
well-cultivated farm of two hundred and eighty acres, bounded on the
south by a deep, romantic ravine, at the bottom of which ran a
delightful stream of water, full of trout, always cool and delicious to
drink, and never known to be dry even in the fiercest summer droughts. A
large log cabin, with a chimney opening in the kitchen, capable of
conveying the smoke and flames of half a cord of wood burning at once on
the hearthstones, and having other commodious conveniences, was my
headquarters, and I intended it to be my permanent home. But thereby
hangs a tale--which, though interesting enough, and full of romantic and
startling episodes, I will not here and now relate, as being somewhat
extraneous to the subject matter before