Excerpt from Young Folks' Book of American Explorers It has always seemed to me that the narratives of the early discoverers and explorers of the American coast were as interesting as "Robinson Crusoe," and were, indeed, very much like it. This has led me to make a series of extracts from these narratives, selecting what appeared to me the most interesting parts, and altering only the spelling. The grammar is not always correct; but it would be impossible to alter that without changing the style of writing too much: so it has not been changed at all. Wherever it has seemed necessary, I have put a word of my own in brackets [thus]; but all else is the very language of the old writers, or their translators. Whenever any thing has been omitted, great or small, the place is marked by dots... Some of the hardest words have been explained by footnotes. One great thing which I have wished my readers to learn is the charm of an original narrative. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.