The Cruise of the Steam Yacht North Star

invited me to be his guest. I saw no way by which I could accept his generous proposition consistently with the duties which I owed to my church and congregation; but, with a spirit of liberality and affection which I can never forget, they urged my acceptance of so fine an occasion to visit portions of the world rarely accessible to American tourists, and I concluded to join the party. My friends generally suggested that the excursion would afford sufficient interest to warrant a record. My excellent publishers, Messrs. Gould and Lincoln, at once claimed a volume; and, finding that my fellow-voyagers wished for a memorial of our four happy months spent in the North Star, I have consented to chronicle the movements of the most agreeable association of my life. I know that books of Travels have multiplied of late with fearful rapidity; but still the vast amount of readers in our country creates a steady demand for such publications.

A book of travels that contains reliable and interesting information has a good tendency. I remember with pleasure my own boyish gratification in reading Mavor's fine collection of voyages and travels; that set of books gave a turn to my future life, and a large share of my happiness

may be traced back to the influences produced on my mind by the perusal of such works. It is a great thing to excite the intellect of a lad in a right direction. When I was about nine years of age, I used to pass many delicious hours in a cobbler's stall, not eight feet square, listening to his stories about the American revolutionary war, and the wars of the English and French in Canada. I made my earliest acquaintance with Lake George, Ticonderoga and Niagara Falls, by the side of the old man's lapstone, whilst he told me how fields were won; and Cobbler Hunt's stories about Indians and lakes, beavers and buffaloes, swans and flamingoes, had much to do with creating a desire to know more of the scenes of his exploits and adventures. This world is full of beauty, and it teems with wonders; and I never see a fresh portion of God's earth, but I feel some respect for the old gentleman's opinion, who, on going from Maine to Albany for the first time that he had left his native state, declared, on his return, that the world was more extensive than he had supposed. There is much to see wherever we turn, if our eyes are opened. All men have their own peculiar taste; and in a party of three or four visiting a foreign city, each member of it will see things in a different point of light. I believe that few

persons have enjoyed so fine an opportunity to visit the coast of Europe as we had who formed the North Star party; and I hope that a plain narrative of the excursion, which has excited so much interest at home and abroad, may prove useful and entertaining. Those of our countrymen who were in Europe this summer are well aware that the presence of the steam yacht in foreign ports was to them the occasion of justifiable pride; while to foreigners she was the fruitful theme of admiration and reflection.

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