page.

BALTIMORE, _February 6, 1854_.




PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.


When I was writing my journal on the vessel which carried me to the
northwest coast of North America, or in the wild regions of this
continent, I was far from thinking that it would be placed one day
before the public eye. I had no other end in writing, but to procure to
my family and my friends a more exact and more connected detail of what
I had seen or learned in the course of my travels, than it would have
been possible for me to give them in a _viva voce_ narration. Since my
return to my native city, my manuscript has passed into various hands
and has been read by different persons: several of my friends
immediately advised me to print it; but it is only quite lately that I
have allowed myself to be persuaded, that without being a learned
naturalist, a skilful geographer, or a profound moralist, a traveller
may yet interest by the faithful and succinct account of the situations
in which he has found himself, the adventures which have happened to
him, and the incidents of which he has been a witness; that if a simple
ingenuous narrative, stripped of the merit of science and the graces of
diction, must needs be less enjoyed by the man of letters or by the
_savant_, it would have, in compensation, the advantage of being at the
level of a greater number of readers; in fine, that the desire of
affording an entertainment to his countrymen, according to his capacity,