Opening paragraphs

It was a feature particular to the colonial wars of North
America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to
be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet.  A wide
and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the
possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. 
The hardy colonists, and the trained European who fought at
his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the
rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage
in a more martial conflict.  But, emulating the patience and
self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to
overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time,
there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place
so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of
those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance,
or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant
monarchs of Europe.

-James Fenimore Cooper,  The Last of the Mohicans

painting courtesy of