Excerpt from Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, Vol. 1 of 2 Africa have been known to us and we have become fami liarised with their history and geography. Archaeologists, geographers, naturalists, and savants have overrun those three parts Of our globe, and have initiated us into their secrets moral, historical, and material; but America is still a vast desert, to which missionaries, merchants, and some rare scientific expeditions have alone penetrated. Its history, its geography, and its geology are yet wrapped in swaddling clothes. It is now three hundred and sixty years since this New World was given us by Christopher Columbus, and much more has been done during that period in extracting its natural resources for the enrichment Of our Old Europe, and in propagating the blessings Of Christianity among the semi - civilised and the savage tribes Of those immense solitudes, than in searching into the mysteries which envelop those popula tions so worthy Of special interest. The efforts that have been made for this purpose are in general tainted with partiality. From vague and insignificant data, inexact and arbitrary conclusions have been drawn, whose in sufficiency or exaggeration, if not their falsity, is every day brought to light by experience and more extensive information. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.