Neither rivers nor mountains stayed the course of the emigrant. Guiding his course by the sun, and ever facing the West, he went slowly on. When that luminary set, his parting rays lit the faces of the pioneer family, and when it rose it threw their long shadows before them on the soft, spongy turf of the forest glades. Sweating through the undergrowth; climbing over fallen trees; sinking knee-deep in marshes; at noon they halted to take a rest in the shade of the primeval forest, beside a brook, and there eat their mid-day meal of fried pork and corn cakes, which the women prepared; then on again, till the shadows stretched far back toward their old homes. Sometimes a storm burst upon them, and the women and children huddled beneath the cart as the thunderbolts fell, shivering the huge trunks of the forest monarchs; and the lightning crimsoned the faces of the forlorn party with its glare. Then the heavens cleared; the sun came out; and the ox-cart went rumbling and creaking onward. No doubt the first days of that weary tramp had in them something of pleasurable excitement; the breezes of spring fanned the brows of the wayfarers, and told of the health and freedom of woodland life; the magnificence of the forest, the summits of the mountains, tinged with blue, the sparkling waters of lake and stream, must have given joy to even the most stolid of those households. But emotions of this description soon became strangers to their souls. But the emigrants ere long found that the wilderness had lost the charms of novelty. Sights and sounds that were at first pleasing, and had lessened the sense of discomfort, soon ceased to attract attention. Their minds, solely occupied with obstacles, inconveniences, and obstructions, at every step of the way, became sullen, or, at least, indifferent.