|
|
|
Book Review
| Byrd's Line: A Natural History. By Stephen C. Ausband. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002. ix + 187 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. Cloth $22.95.
|
| Virginian William Byrd II (1674–1744) was among the most colorful, talented, and interesting American colonials. A figure of exquisite contradictions, Byrd was both consummate aristocrat and bawdy raconteur: a man for whom a single day might include exercising for health, reading in Latin and Greek, saying prayers, lobbying politicians, entertaining prostitutes, and bandying with his wife. Byrd was also an accomplished naturalist whose detailed observations of early eighteenth-century American wilderness are valuable contributions to the environmental—as well as the literary—history of the age. Of primary importance are the two remarkable accounts Byrd kept of his 1728 wilderness journey to survey the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina: The History of the Dividing Line ... and The Secret History of the Line. |
1
|
|
In Byrd's Line: A Natural History, Stephen Ausband uses these accounts as a point of departure for a journey of his own, for this unusual book tracks Byrd not only on the page but also in the field. Using Byrd's journals as his guide, Ausband retraces, as closely as possible, Byrd's actual route from a remote Virginia beach, through the Great Dismal Swamp, into the Roanoke River country, and westward to the foot of what Byrd called the Cherokee Mountains. But even when trudging through swamps, Ausband travels with books in hand, presenting verbatim nature observations from Byrd's journals, and then glossing those passages with detailed natural historical information and with his own observations of current environmental conditions along Byrd's line. |
2
|
|
Because Byrd's diaries are often elliptical, Ausband's work helps us identify the species of plants and animals being described, and enlarges our understanding of how richly biodiverse the Southeastern wilderness once was. Imagine a Virginia that was home not only to deer and bear, but also to panther and wolf, even elk and buffalo. We also learn how local Native Americans fire hunted, how backcountry dwellers prepared polecat (skunk) as table fare, and how rattlesnake oil was used as an elixir. Page after page and mile after mile, Ausband guides us through the textual and actual wilderness, offering help, information, and stories along the way. Also fascinating are Ausband's reports of Byrd's territory today. Although much of this country is now sliced by highways and flooded by reservoirs, the story of Byrd's wilderness is often surprisingly encouraging, for if the buffalo are gone, we also learn of successful efforts to reintroduce red wolves. Indeed, many places and species are now protected on a scale that would have been unimaginable, even to so forward-thinking a man as William Byrd. |
3
|
|
Byrd's Line little resembles traditional scholarship in either ecocriticism or environmental history, but is instead akin to the brand of personal narrative criticism lately employed in such books as John Elder's Reading the Mountains of Home (Harvard, 1999) and Ian Marshall's Peak Experiences (Virginia, 2003). While Ausband's approach is sometimes unnecessarily repetitive, Byrd's Line is a well-written, companionable volume that brings both Byrd and his wilderness to life in unusual and engaging ways. |
4
|
|
Michael P. Branch is professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. His recent books include John Muir's Last Journey (Island Press, 2001), The ISLE Reader (co-edited with Scott Slovic; Georgia, 2003), and Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing before Walden (Georgia, 2003). |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|