And, in the first place, let us inquire what motives could induce men to leave regions, where the axe had been at work for many years--where the land was reduced to cultivation, and the forest reclaimed from the wild beast and the wilder savage--where civilization had begun to exert its power, and society had assumed a legal and determined shape--to depart from all these things, seeking a new home in an inhospitable wilderness, where they could only gain a footing by severe labor, constant strife, and sleepless vigilance? To be capable of doing all this, from _any_ motive, a man must be a strange compound of qualities; but that compound, strange as it is, has done, and is doing, more to reclaim the west, and change the wilderness into a garden, than all other causes combined. A prominent trait in the character of the genuine American, is the desire "to better his condition"--a peculiarity which sometimes embodies itself in the disposition to forget the good old maxim, "Let well-enough alone," and not unfrequently leads to disaster and suffering. A thorough Yankee--using that word as the English do, to indicate national, not sectional, character--is never satisfied with doing well; he always underrates his gains and his successes; and, though to others he may be boastful enough, and may, even truly, rate the profits of his enterprise by long strings of "naught," he is always whispering to himself, "I ought to do better." If he sees any one accumulating property faster than himself, he becomes emulous and discontented--he is apt to think, unless he goes more rapidly than any one else, that he is not moving at all. If he can find no one of his neighbors advancing toward fortune, with longer strides than he, he will imagine some successful "speculator," to whom he will compare himself, and chafe at his inferiority to a figment of his own fancy. If he possessed "a million a minute," he would cast about for some profitable employment, in which he might engage, "to pay expenses." He will abandon a silver-mine, of slow, but certain gains, for the gambling chances of a gold "placer;" and if any one within his knowledge dig out more wealth than he, he will leave the "diggings," though his success be quite encouraging, and go quixoting among the islands of the sea, in search of pearls and diamonds. With the prospect of improvement in his fortunes--whether that prospect be founded upon reason, be a naked fancy, or the offspring of mere discontent--he regards no danger, cares for no hardship, counts no suffering. Everything must bend before the ruling passion, "to better his condition."