As a preparatory step, their pioneers are abroad in all directions; and some of them, being handy with the pen as well as with the rifle, jot down their experiences for the encouragement of their countrymen and edification of the foreigner. Before us are three books of the kind completely American in tone and language, and of at least two of which it may safely be affirmed that none but Americans could have written them. In fact they are written in American rather than in English; particularly Mr Johnson's "Sights," of which we can truly say that, but for our intimate acquaintance with the language of the United States, acquired by much study of this particular sort of literature, we should have made our way through it with difficulty without reference to the dictionary, which we presume to exist, of American improvements on the English tongue. The book swarms with Yankeeisms, vulgarisms, and witticisms; the latter of no elevated class, and seldom rising above a very bad pun; notwithstanding which, _Sights in the Gold Regions_ is a very amusing, and, to all appearance, a very honest account of life at the diggings. The other two books are the work, the one of a philosopher in the woods, and the other of a sailor on horseback. Mr Parkman, who, as regards literary skill, is superior to either of the companions we have given him--although his book has less novelty and pungency than either of theirs--left St Louis in the spring of 1846, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains, with the especial object of studying the manners and character of Indians in their primitive state. He has a good eye for scenery and tolerable descriptive powers, and some of the adventures and anecdotes he relates are striking and interesting. But, for a fine specimen of rich rough-spun Yankee narrative, commend us to Lieutenant Wise of the United States navy. There is no mistake about the gallant author of _Los Gringos_. He makes no more pretence to style or elegance than a boatswain's mate spinning a yarn upon the forecastle. Despising the trammels of orthography and probability, sprinkling his comical English with words from half-a-dozen other languages (often ludicrously distorted), sometimes shrewd, frequently very humorous, invariably good-humoured and vivacious, this rollicking naval officer hoists the reader on his shoulders, and carries him at a canter through his great thick closely-printed New York volume, with infinitely less fatigue to the rider than he himself experienced when, perched upon a Spanish saddle, and armed with a whip "whose lash was like the thongs of a knout," he urged the sorry posters along the road to Mexico's capital. In a few lines of preface, the humorous lieutenant discloses his plan and gives us a glimpse of his quality. "The sketches embodied in this narrative," he says, "were all written on the field of their occurrence: the characters incidentally mentioned are frequently _nommes du mer_. It