THE MONIKINS

BY

J. FENIMORE COOPER




INTRODUCTION.

It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel
a wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript.
Such a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale
shall be told as briefly as possible.

During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of
Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and
in which both the Rhone and the Rhine take their rise, I had passed
from the sources of the latter to those of the former river, and had
reached that basin in the mountains that is so celebrated for
containing the glacier of the Rhone, when chance gave me one of
those rare moments of sublimity and solitude, which are the more
precious in the other hemisphere from their infrequency. On every
side the view was bounded by high and ragged mountains, their peaks
glittering near the sun, while directly before me, and on a level
with the eye, lay that miraculous frozen sea, out of whose drippings
the Rhone starts a foaming river, to glance away to the distant
Mediterranean. For the first time, during a pilgrimage of years, I
felt alone with nature in Europe. Alas! the enjoyment, as all such