The last of the Mohicans I-II. [antikvár]

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. CHAPTER I. "Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared; The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold: — Say, is my kingdom lost?"—Shakespeare. It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before- the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict. But emulating the patience and self-denial of the practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lonely, that it