It has been said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." Pike's pen proved mightier than his sword, and pistols too, in putting bookmaking to confusion and editors to despair. It would be hard to find a match for the disorder in which Pike's materials were set forth in print, especially in the several Appendixes: Even the patient printer would not let it go without published apology. No editor has hitherto been found expert or rash enough to reproduce anything like the original arrangement of the "Parts," "Appendixes" with their numerous pieces, folding "Tables," etc. The English editor, who first undertook to bring something like cosmos out of this chaos, created a new book by weaving as much as he could of the matter of the Appendixes into the main text, or into footnotes thereto, thereby greatly reducing the bulk of the appendicial texts. But these contained documents which proved refractory to such treatment; the plan could not be fully carried out, for there was a residuum which still called for an Appendix. In fact, the real bulk of Pike's cargo is in these Appendixes; his Itineraries--the only portions of his book which were printed in large type, as main text--being less important, if not less interesting, than the rest of the freight. In approaching my own editorial labors, my intention was to adhere as closely as possible to the arrangement of the original. This I flatter myself I have succeeded in doing, with a few important exceptions to which attention is pointedly directed in my notes. These transpositions, with the introduction of chapter-heads, and co-ordination of all of the original book in uniform typography, have probably effected the required result. In 1811 Pike's work was also published, from another MS. copy, with many modifications, in a handsome quarto edition, as follows: _[1811.]--Exploratory Travels | through the | Western Territories | of | North America: | comprising a | Voyage from St. Louis, on the Mississippi, | to the | Source of that River, | and a | Journey through the Interior of Louisiana, | and the | North-eastern Provinces of New Spain. | Performed in the years 1805, 1806, 1807, by Order of the Government of the United States. | ---- | By Zebulon Montgomery Pike, | Major 6th Regt. United States Infantry. | ---- | London: | Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, | Paternoster-Row. | ---- | 1811. |_