Excerpt from Sketches Abroad: With Pen and Pencil<br><br>I would say to the gentle reader that the contents of this rather consumptive little vol ume were not intended, originally, for the public eye, but for the eye domestic; being extracts from familiar letters written from abroad to my family at home, and for their especial pleasure and benefit. At the suggestion of a friend, I was induced to put them into type and use them as a thread whereon to hang the illustra tions, the originals of which were, for the most part, drawn from railroad cars, the coupe' of a diligence, the back of a mule, or from the deck of a steamer. The reader will take them for what they are worth.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>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.