PERPLEXING LESSONS. *3

I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made
me unpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who
had the name of being careless, and injuring things.

I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all
the eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or
hands on, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp,

' LEARNING THE RIVER.'
wooded point that projected far
into the river some miles ahead
of me, and go to laboriously
photographing its shape upon my brain ; and just as I was beginning
to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and the
exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the
bank ! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon
the very point of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously
merged into the general forest, and occupying the middle of a