The Mohicans were the possessors of the country first occupied by the Europeans in this portion of the continent. They were, consequently, the first

     dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all these people, who disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the inroads, of civilization,
     as the verdure of their native forests falls before the nipping frosts, is represented as having already befallen them. There is sufficient historical truth in the picture
     to justify the use that has been made of it.

         In point of fact, the country which is the scene of the following tale has undergone as little change, since the historical events alluded to had place, as almost
     any other district of equal extent within the whole limits of the United States. There are fashionable and well-attended watering-places at and near the spring
     where Hawkeye halted to drink, and roads traverse the forests where he and his friends were compelled to journey without even a path. Glen's has a large
     village; and while William Henry, and even a fortress of later date, are only to be traced as ruins, there is another village on the shores of the Horican. But,
     beyond this, the enterprise and energy of a people who have done so much in other places have done little here. The whole of that wilderness, in which the
     latter incidents of the legend occurred, is nearly a wilderness still, though the red man has entirely deserted this part of the state. Of all the tribes named in
     these pages, there exist only a few half-civilized beings of the Oneidas, on the reservations of their people in New York. The rest have disappeared, either
     from the regions in which their fathers dwelt, or altogether from the earth.

         There is one point on which we would wish to say a word before closing this preface. Hawkeye calls the Lac du Saint Sacrement, the "Horican." As we
     believe this to be an appropriation of the name that has its origin with ourselves, the time has arrived, perhaps, when the fact should be frankly admitted.
     While writing this book, fully a quarter of a century since, it occurred to us that the French name of this lake was too complicated, the American too
     commonplace, and the Indian too unpronounceable, for either to be used familiarly in a work of fiction. Looking over an ancient map, it was ascertained
     that a tribe of Indians, called "Les Horicans" by the French, existed in the neighborhood of this beautiful sheet of water. As every word uttered by Hawkeye
     was not to be received as rigid truth, we took the liberty of putting the "Horican" into his mouth, as the substitute for "Lake George." The name has appeared
     to find favor, and all things considered, it may possibly be quite as well to let it stand, instead of going back to the House of Hanover for the appellation of our
     finest sheet of water. We relieve our conscience by the confession, at all events leaving it to exercise its authority as it may see fit.