. - 
 


      ?

   :       .          .         .

  ,      .      ,   ,     . , ,    ,   .    ,    ,       .

  ,    .  ,       .





. - 













      ?

   :       .          .         .

  ,      .      ,   ,     . , ,    ,   .    ,    ,       .

  ,    .  ,       .



  .., 2026.



James Fenimore Cooper   

Prairie 



Introduction 

The geological structure of that part of America which lies between the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains has given rise to many ingenious theories.     ,       ,    . In fact, this vast region is one continuous plain.   ,       . Travel it lengthwise and crosswisefifteen hundred miles from east to west, six hundred from north to southand you will hardly encounter a single height worthy of the name of mountain.             ,     ,         ,   . High hills are rare here, although a considerable part of the plain is marked by the characteristic undulation, as described in the opening pages of our story.       ,       ,        .

There is reason to believe that the territory now comprising Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and a large portion of the country west of the Mississippi, was once under water.   ,  ,   , , ,         ,    . The soil of these states is alluvial; and many isolated boulders have been found there, the nature and position of which do not easily permit of their being carried there by floating ice.       ;       ,          ,      . This theory holds that the Great Lakes were depressions in the bed of a vast fresh-water lake, so deep that they could not be drained by the cataclysm which exposed the land.   ,          ,  ,      ,  .

It must not be forgotten that the French, while they held Canada and Louisiana, laid claim to the entire territory in question.   ,  ,     ,      . Their hunters and advance troops were the first to establish contact with its wild inhabitants, and the earliest descriptions of these lands that have come down to us are from the pens of French missionaries.             ,             . That is why many French words came into use in this part of America, and the names given to many places in French became firmly established.                   ,     . When the first adventurers who penetrated here discovered in the heart of the forests vast plains covered with bushes or lush grasses, they naturally called them meadows.            ,     , , ,   . When the English came to replace the French and encountered a region different from anything they had seen in Europe, and already designated by a word that in their native language expressed nothing, they retained for these natural "meadows" their conventional name.          ,   ,     ,    ,       ,         . So  in this special meaning  the French word "prairie" entered the English language.          prairie    .

There are two kinds of prairies in America.      . Those that lie east of the Mississippi are comparatively small, extremely fertile, and always surrounded by forests. ,      ,  ,      . They lend themselves to cultivation and are quickly populated.       . The states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan abound in them.    , ,   . Here the scarcity of timber and water makes itself felta grave evil where men have not yet corrected nature with their art.            ,        . But since this whole region is said to be rich in coal, and, as a rule, water can be dug everywhere, enterprising settlers are gradually overcoming these difficulties.      , ,    ,  ,     ,      .

The second type of meadows lies to the west of the Mississippi, several hundred miles from the river, and is called the Great Prairies.        ,      ,     . Of all that we know in the world, they most resemble the steppes of Tartary: these are vast lands where, for lack of the two conditions of life mentioned above, a large population cannot feed.  ,     ,      :   ,             . True, there are many rivers here; but the area is almost deprived of the farmer's joy - streams and springs, which so contribute to the fertility of the soil. ,   ;          ,    .

When and how the American Great Prairies were formed is one of the most complex mysteries of nature.              . High fertility is a common property that distinguishes the soil of the United States, Canada and Mexico.     ,    ,   . It is difficult to find on the globe another area of such length where there would be so little unsuitable land as in the inhabited parts of our country.          ,       ,      . The mountain slopes are for the most part amenable to plowing; and even the prairie soil in this part of the republic is nothing more than a thick layer of sediment.       ;            ,    . The same can fairly be said of the lands between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.              . Here lies a wide strip of semi-desert, on which the action of this story takes place and which at first, obviously, served as a barrier to the further penetration of Americans to the west.     ,         , ,        . However, since the first publication of the book, the borders of the republic have expanded right up to the Pacific Ocean, and the settler, following the trapper, has already settled on its very shores. ,            ,  ,   ,      .

The great prairies have apparently become the last refuge of the red men.   , ,   . The remnants of the Mohicans and Delawares, Creeks, Choctaws and Cherokees are destined to live out their days on these wide plains.    , ,           . The total number of Indians in our country, according to widely differing estimates, is from one hundred to five hundred thousand souls.       ,    ,      . The greater part of them inhabit the lands west of the Mississippi.         . At the time of our story, they were constantly fighting among themselves, and tribal feuds were handed down from generation to generation.   ,     ,             . The Republic has done much to pacify this wild region, and now one can travel with safety where twenty-five years ago civilized man did not dare to go without a guard.        ,      ,            .

Recent events have brought the Great Prairies into the public consciousness, and we now read of travels across them, just as half a century ago we eagerly read the stories of the settlers who made their way to Ohio and Louisiana.       ,        ,       ,     . It is a sign of the times that businesslike discussions are already underway as to where to build a railroad across these vast spaces, and such a project no longer seems a chimera to people. ,   ,     ,         ,        .

With this book we conclude the story of Leatherstocking.        . Weighed down by years, he is no longer a deerslayer or a warrior, but becomes a trapper, that is, a hunter of wild animals, of which there are many in the Great West.  ,       ,   ,   ,     . The sound of the axe drives him from his beloved forests, and in hopeless resignation to fate he seeks refuge on the bare plain that stretches to the Rocky Mountains.        ,           ,    . Here he spends his last years and dies as he lived, a philosopher-hermit, possessed of only a few faults, knowing no vices, honest and sincere as nature herself.        ,  , -,    ,   ,   ,   .

Chapter I  I

I ask, shepherd: out of friendship or for money  , :      

Is it possible for us to get some food here in the wilderness?        ?

Bring us together where we can find shelter  ,     

Shakespeare, As You Like It ,    



At one time much was said and written about the advisability of annexing the vast territory of Louisiana to the United States, already vast and only half populated.         ,         ,        . But when the heat of the controversy cooled and party considerations gave way to broader views, the wisdom of the measure was generally recognized. ,             ,      . It soon became apparent even to the most limited minds that if, by the will of nature, the wilderness had placed a limit to the westward advance of our people, this measure placed in our hands a strip of fertile land which, otherwise, in the course of events, some other nation among our rivals might have seized.        ,             ,          ,  ,   ,     -     . It made us sole masters of the whole vast interior and brought under our control the innumerable tribes of savages who lived on our borders.                 ,    . It settled ancient disputes and gave the people a feeling of security.         . It opened a thousand roads for inland commerce and an outlet to the waters of the Pacific Ocean.             . And if with If in time the need arises for a peaceful division of our vast state, it will provide us with a neighbor who will have a common language with us, the same religion, the same institutions and, one can hope, the same concepts of justice in politics.            ,     ,       ,  ,      ,  ,       .

The purchase was completed in 1803, but it was not until the following spring that the cautious Spanish governor, who governed the region in the name of his monarch, decided to recognize the rights of the new owners or at least allow them entry into the province.    1803 ,        ,      ,             . But no sooner had the formal transfer been completed than the crowds of restless people, always overflowing the American outskirts, poured into the forest wilderness along the right bank of the Mississippi with the same reckless courage that had once driven so many of them to tireless advance from the Atlantic states to the eastern shores of the Father of Rivers. ,    ,   ,    ,             ,                    .

It took a long time for the numerous wealthy colonists from the southern province to merge with their new countrymen; but the sparse, poor population of the more northern region found itself almost immediately drawn into the whirlpool of emigration from the east.   ,            ;                   . Unbridled after the first successes, it was then checked, but now unexpectedly broke out in a new violent outbreak.    ,    ,        . The labors and dangers of the previous advance were forgotten when these boundless and unexplored lands with their imaginary and real riches opened up before enterprising seekers.       ,                . The consequences were just what might be expected when a tempting prospect arises before a people seasoned in difficulties and new undertakings.    ,   ,   ,      ,   .

Thousands of the older generation from what were then called the new states, were abandoning the joys of their hard-won peace, and, at the head of a procession of sons and grandsons born and reared in the woods of Ohio and Kentucky, were pushing further into the interior of the continent, seeking what might, without resorting to poetry, be called a natural and familiar atmosphere.      ,      ,             ,        ,  ,   ,  ,   ,    ,     . Among them was one distinguished man, an old, determined woodsman, who had once been the first to penetrate into the wilds of the second of those states.       , , ,         . This brave and venerable patriarch had now made his last migration to the opposite bank of the river, leaving it between himself and the crowd which his success had drawn to him, because the old haven had lost its value in his eyes, constrained by the legal forms of human society.              ,      ,       ,         ,     .

People usually embark on such enterprises either following their habits or being lured by temptation.      ,    ,   . A few, in a thirst for quick enrichment, pursued the phantom of hope and sought gold veins in virgin lands.                . But by far the greater part of the emigrants settled along rivers and streams, content with the rich harvest with which the muddy riverside soil generously rewards even the least industrious plowman.          ,   ,           . Thus, with magical speed, new settlements arose; and those who witnessed the purchase of the deserted region, for the most part, lived to see how the sovereign state, with all its already considerable population, was received into the bosom of the national Union on the basis of political equality.       ;  ,       ,      ,  ,                   .

The events and scenes described in this story relate to the time when the first steps were being taken in the enterprise that yielded such a quick and successful result.   ,    ,   ,       ,      .

It was the first year of our accession.       . The harvest had long since been reaped, and the withered leaves on the scattered, sparse trees were already beginning to take on the colors of autumn, when a string of wagons emerged from the bed of a dry river and moved further across the rolling plain - or, in the language of the region of which our story is told, across the "rolling prairie."    ,            ,                ,    ,     ,   . The wagons, loaded with household goods and farming tools, a small scattered flock of sheep and cows, the shabby clothing and thoughtless faces of the strong fellows striding beside the slowly dragging teams - everything indicated that this was a caravan of settlers heading West in search of El Dorado. ,      ,      ,       ,     ,   ,    ,      . But contrary to the custom of people of such a disposition, they abandoned the fertile lands of the South-East and made their way (and how, only such courageous (searchers for new ways) through ravines, through turbulent streams, through swamps and dry steppes far beyond the usual limits of settlement.            -   ( ,        )  ,   ,          . Before them lay that broad plain which stretches, so apparently monotonous, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains; and many long and terrible miles already lay between them and the turbulent waters of the swift Platte.      ,  ,    ,    ;               .

To see such a train in this dreary, uninhabited place was all the more unexpected because the surrounding nature offered few temptations for the greed of a merchant, and even less could it promise to a simple settler-farmer.      ,     ,         ,         -.

The thin prairie grasses offered little evidence of the hard, unyielding soil, over which the wheels rolled as easily as over a broken road; neither carts nor cattle left any traces on it - only this stunted and withered grass, which the animals sluggishly nibbled, at times rejecting it altogether as too astringent food, which even hunger could not chew.        ,  ,     ,    ;  ,                ,    ,         ,      .

Where were these bold adventurers heading?      ? For what secret reason, having climbed into this distance, they apparently felt safe?    ,    , , -,    ? You would not have noticed in them a shadow of concern, uncertainty or anxiety.         ,   . Counting women and children, there were more than twenty of them.     ,     .

A little ahead of the others walked a man whose appearance and bearing allowed one to recognize him as the leader of the detachment.     ,          . He was a tall man, tanned, middle-aged, with a sullen face and a languid appearance.    ,  ,       . He seemed lax and stooped, but was broad in the shoulders and in fact monstrously strong.     ,          . Only at times, when some small obstacle suddenly stood in his way, in his gait, which just now seemed lazy and loose, there immediately appeared that energy that was hidden in his being, like the sleepy and clumsy, but formidable strength of an elephant.  ,  -       ,   ,      ,    ,     ,    ,    . His face was dull, with a sharp fold of the mouth, with a heavy chin; and the forehead, which, as is commonly believed, reflects our spiritual appearance, was low, sloping and narrow.   ,    ,   ;  , ,   ,    ,  ,   .

The man's clothing was a mixture of a coarse peasant's suit, and those leather accessories which fashion and convenience had made the necessary distinction of a settler on the march.     :         ,          . But to this heterogeneous attire, something had been added, strangely and tastelessly, for decoration.      -     ,  . Instead of the usual deerskin belt, he was girded with a faded silk scarf of an inconceivable color; the horn handle of his knife was studded with silver plates; the marten fur on his cap was so soft and fluffy that a queen might wear it; on his coarse and greasy coat of shaggy cloth, buttons of Mexican gold glittered; the stock of his gun was carved from excellent mahogany and fastened with rivets and rings of the same precious metal; Here and there on his broad chest the giant had pinned on cheap watches with fobs - at least three of them.              ;        ;         ,     ;            ;                 ;          ,      ,  . In addition to the gun and the bag thrown over his back, along with the fully stuffed and carefully guarded bag of bullets and the horn of gunpowder, he casually threw a sharp and wide axe over his shoulder.      ,                 ,         . And he carried all this load on himself, it seemed, as easily as if he were walking, unhindered by anything, without any burden.        , ,  ,    ,   ,   .

Behind this man, a little behind, walked a crowd of several young men in exactly the same attire and so similar to each other and to their leader that it was impossible not to recognize in them members of the same family.   ,  ,                  ,          . Although the youngest of them had hardly reached the age when, according to the wise judgment of the law, a person comes to his senses, he did not disgrace his family and was no longer inferior in stature to the others.         , ,    ,    ,           . However, there were people of a different disposition in the detachment, but we will describe them later, in the course of our story. ,       ,     ,    .

There were only two grown-up women, although many olive-skinned faces with white curls and a clear excitement and lively curiosity shining in their eyes peered out from the first wagon of the caravan.     ,                     . The elder of the two adults, withered and wrinkled, was the mother of the girls and boys who made up the majority of the detachment.      ,         ,   . The younger was a lively and cheerful girl of eighteen, whose face, clothes, and manners seemed to indicate that in social status she stood several steps above all her visible companions.        ,  ,  ,  , , ,              . The canvas sides of the second covered wagon were tightly drawn, carefully hiding from view what was inside.         ,    ,    . The remaining wagons were loaded with rough furniture and other household goods that a family could have, ready at any hour and at any time of the year to leave their habitable place and set out on a long journey.          ,    ,                  .

There was perhaps little in the caravan itself, or in the appearance of its owners, that one would not encounter every day on the main roads of the country, where everything is changeable, everything is in motion.    ,     , ,   ,        ,   ,   . But the uniqueness and desolation of the area they had invaded left a distinct mark of savagery and adventurism on the settlers.     ,   ,        .

In the small valleys, which the very structure of the plain met the travelers at every mile, the view was limited on two sides by those gentle rises, from which prairies of this type received the name "undulating", while in the other two directions a long, narrow hollow stretched gloomily, here and there enlivened by thickets of rather thick, not stiff grass.   ,          ,         ,         ,         ,  ,       ,   . And from the crests of the rises opened up a landscape that tired the eyes with its monotony and terribly gloomy.      ,        . The land here resembled the ocean when its restless billows rise heavily after the fury of a storm that has not yet subsided: the same uniformly oscillating surface and the same boundless expanse.    ,            :          . Indeed, so striking was the resemblance between the two deserts - water and land - that, however ridiculous this simple hypothesis may seem to a geologist, a poet involuntarily wants to explain the extraordinary formation of the plain alternating dominion of these two elements.   ,           ,  ,        ,            . Here and there, from the depths of a hollow, a tall tree, spreading its bare branches wide, rose like a lonely ship; and to reinforce the deception, a small grove appeared in the misty distance like a green oval, outlined on the edge of the horizon, like an island in the middle of the ocean.       ,    ,  ,   ;          ,    ,    . There is no need to point out to the reader, if he is an experienced man, that the monotony of the surface increases the distance, especially when viewed from a low point; but, as hillock after hillock and island after island floated by, the sad certainty grew stronger that a long and seemingly endless strip of land would have to be traversed before even the most modest desires of the plowman could be realized.    ,    ,     ,      ; ,            ,   ,          ,         .

Nevertheless, the leader of the settlers stubbornly continued on his way, determining it only by the sun, and, resolutely turning his back on civilized settlements, with each step he went further - not to say irrevocably - deeper into the country where the nomadic Indian hunters roam.        ,     , ,      ,             ,   -. But evening was approaching, and in his mind, perhaps incapable of developing a coherent system of precautions, other than those required at the given hour, anxiety nevertheless stirred: how to arrange for an overnight stay?   ,    ,         ,  ,     ,    :     ?

Having climbed to the crest of a hill, slightly higher than the others, he stood for a minute and cast a half-curious glance to the left and right, looking out for the well-known signs of a place where all three essential items would be present - water, fuel, feed for livestock.    ,   ,  ,           ,     ,          , ,   .

The attempt, apparently, was unsuccessful, because after a few seconds of casual, careless inspection, the giant trudged down the gentle slope with the sluggish gait with which a well-fed animal would trudge after taking on a heavy pack. ,  ,  ,      -          ,    ,   .

His example was silently followed by all who followed him, although the young men, each in his turn making the same inspection, showed much more interest, if not excitement.     ,    ,   ,        ,    ,   . From the slow movements of both animals and people it was clear that the hour was approaching when rest became necessary.         ,   ,    . The bushy grass in the hollows presented an obstacle which fatigue made more and more difficult; and more and more often it was necessary to resort to the whip - otherwise the horses in the harness refused to go further.      ,      ;               . And so, when fatigue took possession of everyone except the leader, the detachment froze in place before a sudden and unexpected spectacle.  ,    ,  ,         .

The sun set behind the crest of the nearest "wave", as always leaving behind a wide blazing strip.      ,        . In the midst of the fiery stream, a human figure appeared, outlined against the gilded background so clearly and so tangibly that it seemed one could reach out and grab it.      ,         , , ,     . It was enormous; its pose expressed thought and sadness; and it stood before the people directly in their path.   ;     ;         . But in this bright frame of light, it was impossible to recognize its true dimensions.            .

The impression of the spectacle was immediate and powerful.       . The leader of the settlers immediately stopped and looked at the mysterious creature with a dull curiosity that soon turned into superstitious fear.            ,     . His sons, as soon as they had mastered their excitement, slowly surrounded their father; and when those who drove the teams approached, the entire detachment huddled together in one silent and astonished group.  ,     ,   ;     ,   ,         . But, although the travelers, as one, imagined that something supernatural stood before them, the clicking of locks was immediately heard, and two or three young men, the boldest, had already raised their guns. ,   ,  , ,     ,    ,     ,  ,   .

Tell the boys to go to the right!     ! the mother shouted decisively in a sharp, hoarse voice.     ,   . Eiza or Abner will surely be able to figure out what kind of creature it is!         ,    !




  .


   .

   ,     (https://www.litres.ru/pages/biblio_book/?art=74466164)  .

      Visa, MasterCard, Maestro,    ,   ,     ,  PayPal, WebMoney, ., QIWI ,       .


