{"product_id":"2940012080455","title":"The Last of the Mohicans","description":"THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:\u003cbr\u003e  The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:\u003cbr\u003e  Say, is my kingdom lost?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  SHAKESPEARE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that\u003cbr\u003ethe toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before\u003cbr\u003ethe adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious\u003cbr\u003eboundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of\u003cbr\u003eFrance and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who\u003cbr\u003efought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the\u003cbr\u003erapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the\u003cbr\u003emountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more\u003cbr\u003emartial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the\u003cbr\u003epractised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;\u003cbr\u003eand it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so\u003cbr\u003edark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from\u003cbr\u003ethe inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their\u003cbr\u003evengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant\u003cbr\u003emonarchs of Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate\u003cbr\u003efrontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness\u003cbr\u003eof the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies\u003cbr\u003ebetween the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the\u003cbr\u003ecombatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the\u003cbr\u003eChamplain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the\u003cbr\u003eborders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural\u003cbr\u003epassage across half the distance that the French were compelled to\u003cbr\u003emaster in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,\u003cbr\u003eit received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so\u003cbr\u003elimpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries\u003cbr\u003eto perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the\u003cbr\u003etitle of lake \"du Saint Sacrement.\" The less zealous English thought\u003cbr\u003ethey conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they\u003cbr\u003ebestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of\u003cbr\u003eHanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded\u003cbr\u003escenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of\u003cbr\u003e\"Horican.\"[1]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the\u003cbr\u003e\"holy lake\" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With\u003cbr\u003ethe high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of\u003cbr\u003ethe water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the\u003cbr\u003eadventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual\u003cbr\u003eobstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the\u003cbr\u003elanguage of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless\u003cbr\u003eenterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges\u003cbr\u003eof the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial\u003cbr\u003eacuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we\u003cbr\u003ehave just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which\u003cbr\u003emost of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.\u003cbr\u003eForts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities\u003cbr\u003eof the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory\u003cbr\u003ealighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from\u003cbr\u003ethe dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient\u003cbr\u003esettlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the\u003cbr\u003esceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these\u003cbr\u003eforests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were\u003cbr\u003ehaggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were\u003cbr\u003eunknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its\u003cbr\u003eshades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes\u003cbr\u003eof its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of\u003cbr\u003emany a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the\u003cbr\u003enoontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall\u003cbr\u003eattempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which\u003cbr\u003eEngland and France last waged for the possession of a country that\u003cbr\u003eneither was destined to retain.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081041625328,"sku":"2940012080455","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012080455_p0.jpg?v=1763552431","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012080455","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}