It was a wild region in which we had fixed ourselves.  Dark forests were on every side of us.  To the north and the east was the great chain of lakes which extend a third of the way across North America.  Numberless mountain-ranges rose in the distance, with intervening heights,--some rugged and precipitous, others clothed to their summits with vegetation. Numerous rivers and streams ran through the country; one of which, on whose banks we purposed building our future abode, passed close to our hut.  Besides the features I have described, there were waterfalls and rapids, deep valleys and narrow gorges penetrating amid the hills; while to the south-west could be seen, from the higher ground near us, the wide prairie, extending away far beyond human ken.  Wild indeed it was, for not a single habitation of white men was to be found to the westward; and on the other side, beyond the newly-formed settlement in which Uncle Stephen resided, but few cottages or huts of the hardy pioneers of civilisation,--and these scattered only here and there,-- existed for a hundred miles or more.