ings so common among the lower classes, and have
completely removed the fear of evil geniuses, goblins, and spirits. But
such is not the case in the Western country of the United States, on the
borders of the immense forests and amidst the wild and broken scenery of
glens and mountains, where torrents roll with impetuosity through caves
and cataracts; where, deprived of the amusements and novelties which
would recreate his imagination, the farmer allows his mind to be
oppressed with strange fancies, and though he may never avow the
feeling, from the fear of not meeting with sympathy, he broods over it,
and is a slave to the wild phantasmagoria of his brain. The principal
cause of this is, the monotony and solitude of his existence.

At these confines of civilization, the American is always a hunter, and
those who dwell on the smaller farms, at the edges of forests, often
depend, for their animal food, upon the skill of the male portion of
their community. In the fall of the year, the American shoulders his
rifle, and goes alone into the wilds, to "see after his pigs, horses,
and cows." Constantly on the look-out for deer and wild bees, he resorts
to the most secluded spots, to swamps, mountain ridges, or along the
bushy windings of some cool stream. Constant views of nature in her
grandeur, the unbroken silence of his wanderings, causes a depression of
the mind, and, as his faculties of sight and hearing are ever on the
stretch, it affects his nervous system. He starts at the falling of a
dried leaf, and, with a keen and painful sensation, he scrutinizes the
withered grass before him, aware that at every step he may trample upon
some venomous and deadly reptile. Moreover, in his wanderings, he is
often pressed with hunger, and is exposed to a great deal of fatigue.

"Fast in the wilds, and you will dream of spirits," is an Indian axiom,
and a very true one. If to the above we add, that his mind is already
prepared to receive the impressions of the mysterious and marvellous, we
cannot wonder at their becoming superstitious. As children, they imbibe
a disposition for the marvellous; during the long evenings of winter,
when the snow is deep, and the wild wind roars through the trees, the
old people will smoke their pipes near huge blazing logs, and relate to
them some terrible adventure. They speak of unearthly noises heard near
some caves, of hair-breadth escapes in encounters with evil spirits,
under the form of wild ani