Genealogy Australia

The author examines wild-life about the Mississippi Valley, Yosemite, California, Colorado and elsewhere. Despite severe physical handicaps and having to support himself as a peddler, the author wandered around the wilder regions of the United States in the late 19th century, rather vaguely observing people and animals. A three-chapter section on a trip through the West in 1874 includes a long account of Utah and the Mormons and several pages on Yosemite. Other chapters include the Prairies of the Mississippi Valley, Cow Punchers and Cow Stealers, A Day in Acpress Swamp, The Red Men, California and Colorado. Thomas D. Clark commends Fountain's ‘magnificent descriptions of the great Okefinokee Swamp of Georgia, and the Southern reaches of the Mississippi River’ but condemns his rampant racism.