Their iron surroundings made a mould which turned out all alike in the same shape.

They resembled one another, and they differed from the rest of the world--even the world of America, and infinitely more the world of Europe--in dress, in customs, and in mode of life.
Where their lands abutted on the more settled districts to the eastward, the population was of course thickest, and their peculiarities least.
Here and there at such points they built small backwoods burgs or towns, rude, straggling, unkempt villages, with a store or two, a tavern,--sometimes good, often a "scandalous hog-sty," where travellers were devoured by fleas, and every one slept and ate in one room,[18]--a small log school-house, and a little church, presided over by a hard-featured Presbyterian preacher, gloomy, earnest, and zealous, probably bigoted and narrow-minded, but nevertheless a great power for good in the community.[19] However, the backwoodsmen as a class neither built towns nor loved to dwell therein.

They were to be seen at their best in the vast, interminable forests that formed their chosen home.

They won and kept their lands by force, and ever lived either at war or in dread of war.
Hence they settled always in groups of several families each, all banded together for mutual protection.

Their red foes were strong and terrible, cunning in council, dreadful in battle, merciless beyond belief in victory.