FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   >>  
interesting account is given of Boone, whose passion for a sylvan life was intense. Like Leather-stocking, it would seem that he always got lost in the clearing, and that only in the forest he knew his way and felt free and unincumbered. Then, like McGregor, "standing on his native heath," he feared no difficulties or dangers. Byron, in his Don Juan, calls him "The man of Ross run wild," and says, that he "killed nothing but a bear or buck," but not so; he had many deadly encounters with the Indians, and was repeatedly taken prisoner by them; but he effected his escapes with great tact. The author of "Sketches of Western Adventure," speaking of him, alone in the wilderness, says, "The wild and solitary grandeur of the country around him, where not a tree had been cut, nor a house erected, was to him an inexhaustible source of admiration and delight; and he says himself, that some of the most rapturous moments of his life were spent in those lonely rambles. The utmost caution was necessary to avoid the savages, and scarcely less to escape the ravenous hunger of the wolves that prowled nightly around him in immense numbers. He was compelled frequently to shift his lodging, and by undoubted signs, saw that the Indians had repeatedly visited his hut during his absence. He sometimes lay in canebrakes, without fire, and heard the yells of the Indians around him. Fortunately, however, he never encountered them." Mr. John A. McClung is the author of the above mentioned work. This gentleman is also the author of a novel, entitled "Camden," which has not received half the notice it deserved. Mr. Flint has now in the press a life of Boone, which will soon be published. I am indebted to him for the following graphic note, concerning Boone: "This extraordinary man, whose birth is said to have been in Maryland, in Virginia, and in North Carolina, was in fact born in neither; but in Pennsylvania, in Buck's County, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. When he was three years old, his father removed to a water of the Schuylkill, not far from Reading. When he was thirteen years old, his father removed thence to the South Yadkin, North Carolina; and in the midst of the bushy hills of that State the character of this Nimrod was developed. "No historical facts are better attested, than those, to which allusion is here made. The native sagacity, the robust hardihood, the invincible courage and spirit of endurance, put forth on al
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   >>  



Top keywords:

author

 

Indians

 

father

 

removed

 

repeatedly

 

Carolina

 
native
 

deserved

 

received

 
endurance

notice

 

published

 

graphic

 

courage

 
spirit
 

indebted

 
entitled
 

Fortunately

 

encountered

 

canebrakes


gentleman
 

extraordinary

 

McClung

 

mentioned

 

Camden

 
invincible
 

developed

 

Nimrod

 

historical

 

attested


character

 

Yadkin

 

thirteen

 

Reading

 

Schuylkill

 
Philadelphia
 

robust

 
hardihood
 

Virginia

 

Maryland


Pennsylvania

 
allusion
 

twenty

 

County

 

sagacity

 

escape

 
killed
 

feared

 
difficulties
 
dangers