[Chimney Swifts] build their nests before the Europeans came and made houses with chimneys?" He had much to say about the more familiar birds[1] and beasts that he met with and heard of—their peculiarities and habits, and occasionally a grotesque story concerning some one of them. The weather, too, took up a large share of his attention, and he appears to have kept a careful record which is inserted as an appendix to the second volume of the translation.
Kalm constantly refers to his friend Dr. Linnæus, who evidently held the author of the "Travels" in high esteem. The generic name of our laurels—Kalmia—was bestowed by the great naturalist in honor of his humble friend, and Kalm, in speaking of the laurel, refers to this fact. John Bartram, the first American botanist, and whose house, built in 1731, is still standing, surrounded by its delightful old garden, was another to whom Kalm constantly refers in terms of friendship. His intercourse with Bartram and with Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn in Philadelphia was evidently a great source of satisfaction to Kalm, for he makes frequent allusion to his visits to and conversations with these worthies.
The "Travels" were not confined to the neighborhood of Philadelphia, though the author spent much of his time in this vicinity. He visited New York on one or two occasions, and made an arduous journey to Montreal, by way of the Hudson, and was at one time in some danger from an attack by the Iroquois. He seemed particularly struck with the French women of Montreal—their looks, dress, and good manners—and draws some rather invidious comparisons between them and their English sister residents. "In their knowledge of œconomy." he says, "they greatly surpass the English women in the plantations, who indeed have taken the liberty of throwing off the burthen of housekeeping upon their husbands, and sit in their chairs all day with folded arms." These remarks brought forth a defensive foot-note on the part of the English translator.
The "Travels into North America" is to be read in a spirit of simplicity, for in such a spirit it was conceived. One reads it as he reads "The Compleat Angler," or "The Natural History of Selborne," or Sir Thomas Browne—books that exhale a perennial fragrance, having their roots deep in the soil of things personal.
- ↑ See article by the writer in the Auk Vol. XX., No. 3. July. 1903.
