It is a delight to the student who loves nature to think of the American frontier as it was in the days of 1812. For in those days the forest stretched away from Maine along the swift St. Lawrence and the green waters of the Great Lakes to end at the prairies of the far West. It was a country as God made it and almost unmarred by the bungling hand of man. The moose and the red deer, the wild turkey and the partridge, roamed undisturbed at will, and the settlers who had gathered at widely separated points must needs provide bounties on wolf and panther and wild-cat scalps to protect their cattle and sheep, their ducks and chickens. To go to the St. Lawrence River the traveller found it most convenient to go up the Hudson to the head of navigation, and then, after carrying his burden overland to Lake George, proceed by the way of Lake Champlain. To the east of this there was no highway through the vast forest. To the west lay the Adirondacks. To reach the Great Lakes the traveller must needs leave the Hudson for the Mohawk, and travel up its winding course in the shoal-draft scows called batteaux that were pushed along by poles, just as the Big Sandy and Tug Rivers in the Kentucky mountains are navigated at this day. At Little Falls was a portage where the Indians and the Dutch used to compete for the privilege of carrying goods around the broken water, and thereafter the route as far as where Rome now stands was usually unimpeded. This place reached, another portage must be made to Wood Creek, that flowed toward Lake Ontario, and so at last the traveller saw from the bluffs of Oswego the wide water before him. There were, indeed, roads along these routes--trails, properly speaking, over which one could drive a wagon in the dry months of summer and early fall, and a sled after the snow came in winter. In the wet seasons these trails were practically impassable. Nevertheless, when the Congress discussed schemes for resenting British aggression, the invasion of Canada was always mentioned first of all! [Illustration: Sackett’s Harbor, 1814.]