Автор:Washington Irving Год: 2008 Издание:Книга по Требованию Страниц: 448 ISBN: 9781605202846 The wind now springing up, the Tonquin got under way, and stood in to seek the channel; but was again deterred by the frightful aspect of the breakers, from venturing within a league. Here she hove to; and Mr. Mumford, the second mate, was despatched with four hands, in the pinnace, to sound across the channel until he should find four fathoms depth. —from Chapter VII The storied wildness of the American West captured the imagination of Washington Irving as completely as did the cultured romance of Europe, and the native New Yorker had barely returned home, in 1832, from nearly two decades abroad in England, France, Germany, and Spain when he set out again, this time for the frontier. The West truly was still wild then, to Continental and colonial eyes, and Irving was moved to tell one of the most fascinating adventure tales of the hardy men who explored and mapped it. This is Irving’s lost classic, a riveting, rollicking account of John Jacob Astor’s grand dreams of building a...
