HEN the roving Arazona Indians

wish to descend from the mountains

and mingle with the something less savage settlers, they first send down a small aged man; if he is slain, they say the loss is not great, and remain in their fastnesses, but if well received, others follow. If this little book should be well received, it is big enough for my purpose; if not, it is big enough for all purposes.

These lines were written on the rough edges of the frontier, amid the scenes described, where I have spent all but the last few months of my life.

There, walled from the world by seas on one hand, and the Sierra Nevada mountains in savage grandeur on the other, the heart would sometimes hunger after a gentler life, and the soul go out after the sweet ideal, a dove on the waters, and bring back dreams, and with them clothe facts and tales taken from the lips of mountain men as they sat and told them around their camp and cabin fires. Of such creations are these songs.

The city of Mexico was my Mecca, and San Francisco, to me, a marvel of magnificence and civilization. This last summer I crossed the Rocky Mountains, and for the first time saw New York; a great place for cheap books, and a big den of small thieves.

I hesitate to confess these facts lest the clever critic and reader might, on the principle that no good thing can come out of Nazareth, look no further than this admission; and they who only seek a safe opportunity to condemn, do so at once.