Page 376 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

READING LESSONS.
his constitution, and a robustness to his nerves, that never after shrunk om danger. Following the in­ stinct of his towering genius, he had not reached the years of manhood, when he was engaged in enter­ prises pregnant with terror, and presenting to his view objects of a most rmidable aspect. He did
not, however, enter on them with thoughtless temer­ ity. At that early period he began, what he persist­ ed in through li , to associate motives of public util­ ity with magnanimous undertakings. The usual occupations of his young countrymen were not su ­ cient employment r his active mind; he there re turned his views towards that vast western region, now so miliar to our ears and acquaintance, but then known only by the terrors it inspired, and the cruelties practised by the savage Indians, lurking in its rests and recesses. He left the endearments of
society, to explore the courses of rivers, to traverse plains and mountains r beyond the then inhabited ontiers; hoping to discover sources, whence ture opulence might ow to his country,-to examine the productions, and estimate the rtility of immense tracts, capabl of rewarding the industry of thou­ sands, pining in want and oppression in foreign lands; whose descendants might people the wilder­ ness, beautify it by cultivation, and multiply the resources of his native province. In these achieve­ ments, the heroic youth was to inure himself to hun­ ger and thirst, to lie on the damp earth without any coverin but the spreading branches of the oak and the canpy of the heavens; to accustom himself to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the parching heat and chilling ost; to herd with the beasts of te rst; t be exposed to the tomahawk and scalpmg-kmf; to be surrounded by di culties, yet never to be dis-