Mayne Reid

The White Chief Mayne Reid

Publisher Marketing: Deep in the interior of the American Continent-more than a thousand miles from the shores of any sea-lies our scene. Climb with me yonder mountain, and let us look from its summit of snow. We have reached its highest ridge. What do we behold? On the north a chaos of mountains, that continues on through thirty parallels to the shores of the Arctic Sea On the south, the same mountains, -here running in separate sierras, and there knotting with each other. On the west, mountains again, profiled along the sky, and alternating with broad tables that stretch between their bases. Now turn we around, and look eastward. Not a mountain to be seen Far as the eye can reach, and a thousand miles farther, not a mountain. Yonder dark line rising above the plain is but the rocky brow of another plain-a steppe of higher elevation. Where are we? On what summit are we standing? On the Sierra Blanca, known to the hunter as the Spanish Peaks. We are upon the western rim of the Grand Prairie. Looking eastward, the eye discovers no signs of civilisation. There are none within a month's journeying. North and south, -mountains, mountains. Westward, it is different. Through the telescope we can see cultivated fields afar off, -a mere strip along the banks of a shining river. Those are the settlements of Nuevo Mexico, an oasis irrigated by the Rio del Norte. The scene of our story lies not there. Contributor Bio:  Reid, Mayne Thomas Mayne Reid (1818 - 1883), was a Scots-Irish American novelist. "Captain" Reid wrote many adventure novels akin to those written by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a great admirer of Lord Byron. These novels contain action that takes place primarily in untamed settings: the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. Biography Reid was born in Ballyroney, a small hamlet near Katesbridge, County Down, in the north of Ireland, the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who was a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister, so in September 1834 he enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Although he stayed for four years, he could not motivate himself enough to complete his studies and receive a degree. He headed back home to Ballyroney to teach school. In December 1839 he boarded the Dumfriesshire bound for New Orleans, Louisiana, arriving in January 1840. Shortly afterward he found a job as a clerk for corn factor, or trader in the corn market. He stayed in New Orleans for six months. It is said that he left his position for refusing to whip slaves. (Reid later used Louisiana as the setting of one of his best-selling books, an anti-slavery novel entitled The Quadroon.)