"If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death."--
Merry Wives of Windsor
The party had landed on the border of a region that is, even
to this day, less known to the inhabitants of the States
than the deserts of Arabia, or the steppes of Tartary. It
was the sterile and rugged district which separates the
tributaries of Champlain from those of the Hudson, the
Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence. Since the period of our tale
the active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a
belt of rich and thriving settlements, though none but the
hunter or the savage is ever known even now to penetrate its
wild recesses.
As Hawkeye and the Mohicans had, however, often traversed
the mountains and valleys of this vast wilderness, they did
not hesitate to plunge into its depth, with the
