secured favorable open locations along the coves and shores; but it
required all this length of time to bring the interior country into a
condition for its use.

The opening of a wilderness combined circumstances of interest which
are not, perhaps, equalled in any other occupation. It is impossible
to imagine a more exhilarating or invigorating employment. It
developed the muscular powers more equally and effectively than any
other. The handling of the axe brought into exercise every part of the
manly frame. It afforded room for experience and skill, as well as
strength; it was an athletic art of the highest kind, and awakened
energy, enterprise, and ambition; it was accompanied with sufficient
danger to invest it with interest, and demand the most careful
judgment and observation. He who best knew how to fell a tree was
justly looked upon as the most valuable and the leading man. To bring
a tall giant of the woods to the ground was a noble and perilous
achievement. As it slowly trembled and tottered to its fall, it was
all-important to give it the right direction, so that, as it came down
with a thundering crash, it might not be diverted from its expected
course by the surrounding trees and their multifarious branches, or
its trunk slide off or rebound in an unforeseen manner, scattering
fragments and throwing limbs upon the choppers below. Accidents often,
deaths sometimes, occurred. A skilful woodman, by a glance at the
surrounding trees and their branches, could tell where the tree on
which he was about to operate should fall, and bring it unerringly to
the ground in the right direction. There was, moreover, danger from
lurking savages; and, if the chopper was alone in the deep woods, from
the prowling solitary bear, or hungry wolves, which, going in packs,
were sometimes formidable. There were elements also, in the work, that
awakened the finer sentiments. The lonely and solemn woods are God's