BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON AUTHOR OF “YOUNG FOLKS’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES,” ETC. BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD 1877 COPYRIGHT. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 1877. _Electrotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, and Company, 117 Franklin Street, Boston._ _DEDICATION._ TO GEORGE BARRELL EMERSON, WITHOUT WHOSE COUNSEL AND WHOSE EFFICIENT KINDNESS THIS HISTORICAL SERIES WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN UNDERTAKEN, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. IT has always seemed to me that the narratives of the early discoverers and explorers of the American coast were as interesting as “Robinson Crusoe,” and were, indeed, very much like it. This has led me to make a series of extracts from these narratives, selecting what appeared to me the most interesting parts, and altering only the spelling. The grammar is not always correct; but it would be impossible to alter that without changing the style of writing too much: so it has not been changed at all. Wherever it has seemed necessary, I have put a word of my own in brackets [thus]; but all else is the very language of the old writers, or their translators. Whenever any thing has been omitted, great or small, the place is marked by dots.... Some of the hardest words have been explained by footnotes. One great thing which I have wished my readers to learn is the charm of an original narrative. We should all rather hear a shipwreck described by a sailor who was on board the ship than to read the best account of it afterwards prepared by the most skilful writer. What I most desire is, that those who have here acquired a taste for these old stories should turn to the books from which the extracts are taken, and follow up the study for themselves. Then they can go with renewed interest to the pages of Bancroft and Parkman, or at least to my own “Young Folks’ History,” for the thread on which these quaint narratives may be strung.