The opening of a wilderness combined circumstances of interest which are not, perhaps, equalled in any other occupation. It is impossible to imagine a[i.28] more exhilarating or invigorating employment. It developed the muscular powers more equally and effectively than any other. The handling of the axe brought into exercise every part of the manly frame. It afforded room for experience and skill, as well as strength; it was an athletic art of the highest kind, and awakened energy, enterprise, and ambition; it was accompanied with sufficient danger to invest it with interest, and demand the most careful judgment and observation. He who best knew how to fell a tree was justly looked upon as the most valuable and the leading man. To bring a tall giant of the woods to the ground was a noble and perilous achievement. As it slowly trembled and tottered to its fall, it was all-important to give it the right direction, so that, as it came down with a thundering crash, it might not be diverted from its expected course by the surrounding trees and their multifarious branches, or its trunk slide off or rebound in an unforeseen manner, scattering fragments and throwing limbs upon the choppers below. Accidents often, deaths sometimes, occurred. A skilful woodman, by a glance at the surrounding trees and their branches, could tell where the tree on which he was about to operate should fall, and bring it unerringly to the ground in the right direction. There was, moreover, danger from lurking savages; and, if the chopper was alone in the deep woods, from the prowling solitary bear, or hungry wolves, which, going in packs, were sometimes formidable. There were elements also, in the work, that awakened[i.29] the finer sentiments. The lonely and solemn woods are God's first temples. They are full of mystic influences; they nourish the poetic nature; they feed the imagination. The air is elastic, and every sound reverberates in broken, strange, and inexplicable intonations. The woods are impregnated with a health-giving and delightful fragrance nowhere else experienced. All the arts of modern luxury fail to produce an aroma like that which pervades a primitive forest of pines and spruces. Indeed, all trees, in an original wilderness, where they exist in every stage of growth and decay, contribute to this peculiar charm of the woods. It was not only a manly, but a most lively, occupation. When many were working near each other, the echoes of their voices of cheer, of the sharp and ringing tones of their axes, and of the heavy concussions of the falling timber, produced a music that filled the old forests with life, and made labor joyous and refreshing.