The Pathfinder | Page 2

portion of even the
older States was rescued from the wilderness.
Ontario in our own times has been the scene of important naval

evolutions. Fleets have manoeuvered on those waters, which, half a
century ago, were as deserted as waters well can be; and the day is not
distant when the whole of that vast range of lakes will become the seat
of empire, and fraught with all the interests of human society. A
passing glimpse, even though it be in a work of fiction, of what that
vast region so lately was, may help to make up the sum of knowledge
by which alone a just appreciation can be formed of the wonderful
means by which Providence is clearing the way for the advancement of
civilization across the whole American continent.

THE PATHFINDER.


CHAPTER I.
The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord! that arch of
thine; My censer's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my
only prayers. MOORE
The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The
most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the
poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of
the illimitable void. The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the
novice with indifference; and the mind, even in the obscurity of night,
finds a parallel to that grandeur, which seems inseparable from images
that the senses cannot compass. With feelings akin to this admiration
and awe -- the offspring of sublimity -- were the different characters
with which the action of this tale must open, gazing on the scene before
them. Four persons in all, -- two of each sex, -- they had managed to
ascend a pile of trees, that had been uptorn by a tempest, to catch a
view of the objects that surrounded them. It is still the practice of the
country to call these spots wind-rows. By letting in the light of heaven
upon the dark and damp recesses of the wood, they form a sort of oases
in the solemn obscurity of the virgin forests of America. The particular
wind-row of which we are writing lay on the brow of a gentle acclivity;
and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive view to those
who might occupy its upper margin, a rare occurrence to the traveller in

the woods. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power
that so often lays desolate spots of this description; some ascribing it to
the whirlwinds which produce waterspouts on the ocean, while others
again impute it to sudden and violent passages of streams of the electric
fluid; but the effects in the woods are familiar to all. On the upper
margin of the opening, the viewless influence had piled tree on tree, in
such a manner as had not only enabled the two males of the party to
ascend to an elevation of some thirty feet above the level of the earth,
but, with a little care and encouragement, to induce their more timid
companions to accompany them. The vast trunks which had been
broken and driven by the force of the gust lay blended like jack-straws;
while their branches, still exhaling the fragrance of withering leaves,
were interlaced in a manner to afford sufficient support to the hands.
One tree had been completely uprooted, and its lower end, filled with
earth, had been cast uppermost, in a way to supply a sort of staging for
the four adventurers, when they had gained the desired distance from
the ground.
The reader is to anticipate none of the appliances of people of condition
in the description of the personal appearances of the group in question.
They were all wayfarers in the wilderness; and had they not been,
neither their previous habits, nor their actual social positions, would
have accustomed them to many of the luxuries of rank. Two of the
party, indeed, a male and female, belonged to the native owners of the
soil, being Indians of the well-known tribe of the Tuscaroras; while
their companions were -- a man, who bore about him the peculiarities
of one who had passed his days on the ocean, and was, too, in a station
little, if any, above that of a common mariner; and his female associate,
who was a maiden of a class in no great degree superior to his own;
though her youth, sweetness and countenance, and a modest, but
spirited mien, lent that character of intellect and refinement which adds
so much to the charm of beauty in the sex. On the present occasion, her
full blue eye reflected the feeling of sublimity that the scene excited,
and her pleasant face was beaming with the pensive expression with
which all deep