There is a class of literature peculiarly American, and unlikely to be rivalled or imitated to any great extent on this side the Atlantic, for which we entertain a strong predilection. It is the literature of the forest and the prairie, of the Indian camp and the backwood settlement, of the trapper's hunting ground, and, we now must add, of the Californian gold mine. It comprises the exploits and narratives of the pioneer in the Far West, and the squatter in Texas; of the military volunteer in Mexico, and the treasure-seeking adventurer on the auriferous shores of the Pacific. In common with millions of Europeans, we have watched, for years past, with wonder, if not always with admiration, the expansive propensities of that singularly restless people, who, few in number, in proportion to their immense extent of territory, and prosperous at home under the government they prefer, yet find themselves cramped and uneasy within their vast limits, and continually, with greater might than right, displace their neighbour's boundary-mark and encroach upon his land. The mode in which this has been done, in a southerly direction, by the settlement of emigrants, who, gradually accumulating, at last dispossess and expel the rightful owner, has been often described and exemplified; and nowhere more graphically than by Charles Sealsfield, in his admirable _Cabin Book_ and _Squatter Nathan_. The Anglo-German-American, deeply impressed by the virtues of his adopted countrymen, and especially by that intelligence and enterprising spirit which none can deny them, sees merit rather than injustice in the forcible expulsion of the Spaniard's descendants, and makes out the best possible case in defence of the Yankee spoliator. Still, when stripped of factitious colouring and rhetorical adornments, the pith of the argument seems to be that the land is too good for the lazy "greasers," who must incontinently absquatilate, and make way for better men. As for Indians, they are of no account whatever. "Up rifle and at them!" is the word. In utter wantonness they are shot and cut down. Let us hear an American's account of the process.