IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) # * 1.0 I 2.5 === ui m I.I Hi 2.2 118 L25 1111114 IIIIII.6 p% <^ /a ^l >' "WJ* O 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 8724503 m i\ ;V <> l\ t ^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series CIHM/ICMH Coilection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques '^ Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. □ Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ D 0 D D D Couverture endommagde Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul^e I I Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque I I Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur Coloured :nk (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ D Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serr^e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filminf / II se peut que certaines pages b'viiches ajouties lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 film^es. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppldmentaires: L'Institut a microf ilmi le meilleur exemplaire qu'U lui a 6x6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite. ou qui peuvent exiger une modiffcation dans la m6thode normale de filmage sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. |~~| Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Pages restored and/oi Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes Pages discoloured, stained or foxe( Pages d6color6es, tachet^es ou piqudes j I Pages damaged/ I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ r~| Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ □Pages detached/ Pages ddtachdes r^ Showthrough/ I — I Transparence r~| Quality af print varies/ D Quality .:n6gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du c.iatiriel suppldmentaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponibSe Pages wholiy or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc.. ont 6t6 film^es d nouveau de fapon a obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est IWmi au taux de reduction indiqu* ci-ddssous. 10X 14X 18X 22X r ^ 12X 16X 20X 26X 30X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generonity of: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grAce d la g6n6rosit6 da: BibliothdquG nationals du Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specif icQtions. Les images suivant^s ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grend soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettet^ de rexemplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditior^s du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exempldiJres originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont filmto en commandant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film^s en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en termiiJant par la derni&re page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol -h»> (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaltra sur la dernidre image do cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols —► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirety included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tablaaux. etc., peuvunt dtre filmte A das taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est f ilmA A partir de rangift supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite. ef: de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. f' ■■■•:... 2 3 1 2 3 4 S 6 Bm 1^ «^ 8^* ^i^* ^^ ft^* • ^ ^.r^ : ; ^l-- i ■•' ! K^v>;, ■.' .«« v^ ^.•^*-5'.'- ■}■(''[ ::t-vvs Tmv- CONTENTS. PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE, SPRINGS, .... AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE, NATURE AND THE POETS, NeTES BY THE WAY, FOOT-PATHS, . A BUNCH OP HERBS, WINTER PICTURES, . INDEX, . . . PAGE 9 51 75 109 159 237 251 287 317 '.;■ ,i. i -. iiS 'i.'! I ♦ ' !...» .1 ■:,„-:■■:.■:,» a:;.' ■. . I PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. ; ■ • ; .'>,; ♦ !;• s PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. WHEN one summer day I bethought me of a voyage down the east or Pepac- ton branch of the Delaware, I seemed to want some excuse for the start, some send- off, some preparation, to give the enterprise genesis and head. This I found in building my own boat. It was a happy thought. How else should I have got under way, how else should I have raised the breeze ? The boat-building warmed the blood ; it made the germ take, it whetted my appetite for the voyage. There is nothing like serving an apprenticeship to fortune, like earning the right to your tools. In most enterprises the temptation is always to begin too far along; we want to start where somebody else leaves off. Go back to the stump, and see what an impetus you get. Those fisher- men who wind their own flies before they go a-fishing, — how they bring in the trout ; and those hunters who mn their own bullets or make their own cartridges, — the game is already mortgaged to them. 12 PEP ACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. When my boat was finished — and it was a very simple affair — I was eager as a boy to be off ; I feared the river would all run by before I could wet her bottom in it. This enthusiasm begat great expectations of the trip. I should surely surprise Nature, and win some new secrets from her. I should glide down noiselessly upon her and sec what all those willow screens and -affling curves concealed. As a fisherman and pedestrian I had been able to come at the stream only at certain points; now the most private and secluded retreats of the nymph would be opened to me ; every bend and eddy, every cove hedged in by swamps, or passage walled in by high alders, would be at the beck of my paddle. i Whom shall one take with him when he goes a-courting Nature? This is always a vital question. There are persons who will stand between you and that which you seek : they obtrude themselves ; they mon- opolize your attention ; they blunt your sense of the shy, half -revealed intelligences about you. I want for companion a dog or a boy, or a person who has the virtues of dogs and boys,^ — transparency, good-nature, curiosity, open sense, cud a nameless quality that is akin to trees and growths and the PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 13 inarticulate forces of Nature. With him you are alone, and yet have company ; you are free ; you feel no disturbing element ; the influences of Nature stream through him and around him ; he is a good conductor of the subtle fluid. The quality or quali- fication I refer to belongs to most persons who spend their lives in the open air, — to soldiers, hunters, fishers, labourers, end to artists and poets of the right sort. How fuU of it, to choose an illustrious example, was such a man as Walter Scott ! But no such person came in answer to my prayer, so I set out alone. It was fit that I put my boat into the water at Arkville, but it may seem a little incongruous that I should launch her into Dry Brook ; yet Dry Brook is here a fine large trout-stream, and I soon found its waters were wet enough for all practical purposes. The Delaware is only one mile distant, and I chose this as the easiest road from the station to it. A young farmer helped me carry the boat to the water, but did not stay to see me off ; only some calves feeding along shore witnessed my embark- ation. It would have been a godsend to boys, but there were no boys about. I stuck on a rift before I had gone ten yards. i H PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAOK. and saw with misgiving the paint trans- ferred from the bottom of my little scow t'> the tops of the stones thus early in the journey. But I was soon making fair head- way, and taking trout for my dinner as I floated along. My first mishap was when I broke the second joint of my rod on a bass, and the first serious impediment to my progress was when I encountered the tnink of a prostrate elm bridging the stream, within a few inches of the surface. My rod mended and the elm cleared, I anticipated better sailing when I should reach the Dela- ware itself ; but I found on this day and on subsequent days that the Delaware has a way of dividing up that is very embar- rassing to the navigator. It is a stream of many min I tried them on a point of natural history. I had observed, coming along, a great many dead eels lying on the bottom of the river, that I supposed had died from spear wounds. 24 FEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. ?i!i ** No," said Johnny, *^ they are lamper-eels. They die as soon as they have built their nests and laid their eggs." "Are you sure?" ''That's what they all say, and I know they are lampers. " So I fished one up out of the deep water with my paddle-blade, and examined it; and sure enough it was a lamprey. There was the row of holes along its head, and its ugly suction mouth. I had noticed their nests, too, all along, where the water in the pools shallowed to a few feet and began to hurry toward the rifts; they were low mounds of small stones, as if a bushel or more of large pebbles had been dumped upon the river bottom; occasionally they were so near the surface as to make a big ripple. The eel attaches itself to the stones by its mouth, and thus moves them at will. An old fisherman told me that a strong man could not pull a large lamprey loose from a rock to which it had attached itself. It fastens to its prey in this way, and sucks the life out. A friend of mine says he once saw in the St. Lawrence a pike as long as his arm with a lamprey eel attached to him. The fish was nearly dead, and was quite white, the eel had so sucked out his blood PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 25 and substance. The fish, when seized, darts against rocks and stones, and tries in vain to rub the eel ofif, then succumbs to the sucker. * *' The lampers do not all die," said Denny, "because they do not all spawn;" and I observed that the dead ones were all of one size and doubtless of the same age. The lamprey is the octopus, the devil-fish of these waters, and thtre is, perhaps, no tragedy enacted here that equals that of one of these vampires slowly sucking the life out of a bass or a trout. My boys went to school part of the time. Did they have a good teacher ? " Good enough for me," said Johnny. " Good enough for me," echoed Denny. Just below Bark-a-boom — the name is worth keeping — they left me. I was loath to part with them, their musical voices and their thorough good-fellowship had been very acceptable. With a little persuasion, I think they would have left their home and humble fortunes, and gone a-roving with me. About four o'clock the warm, vapour-laden south-west wind brought forth the expected thunder-shower. I saw the storm rapidly developing behind the mountains in my front. Presently I came in sight of a long, 26 PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. covered wooden bridge that spanned the river about a mile ahead, and I put my paddle into the water with all my foroe to reauh this cover before the storm. It was neck and neck most of the way. The storm had the wind, and I had it—in my teeth. The bridge was at Shavertown, and it was by a close shave that I got under it before the rain was upon roe. How it poured and rattled and whipped in around the abutment of the bridge to reach me \ I looked out well ' atisfied upon the foaming water, upon the wet, unpainted houses and bams of the Shavertowners, aid upon the trees, ** Caught and cuffed by the gale,** A little hawk — the spotted- winged night- liawk — was also roughly used by the storm. He faced it bravely, and beat and beat, but was 'Unable to stem it, or even hold hia own ; gradually he drifted back, till he was lost to sight in the wet obscurity. The water in the river rose an inch while I waited, about three-quarters of an hour. Only one man, I reckon, saw me in Shavertown, and he came and gossiped with me from the bank above when the storm had abated. The second night I stopped at the sign of the elm-tree. The woods were too wet, and ir^ PEPACTON : A SITMMER VOYAGE. 27 I concluded to make my boat my bed. A superb elm, on a smooth, grassy plain a few feet from the water's edge, looked hospitable in the twilight, and I drew my boat up be- neath it. I hung my clothes on the jagged edges of its rough bark, and went to bed with the moon, **in her third quarter," peeping under the branches upon me. I had been reading Stevenson's amusing Travels with a Donkey, and the lines he quotes from an old play kept running in my head — '■ " The bed was made, the room was fit, I By punctual eve the stars were lit ; The air was sweet, the water ran ; ' ' No need was there for maid or man, ^_ When we put up, my ass and I, i At God's green caravanserai. " \ - But the stately elm played me a trick : it slyly and at long intervals let great drops of water down upon me ; now with a sharp smack upon my rubber coat ; then with a heavy thud upon the seat in the bow or stem of my boat ; then plump into my upturned ear, or upon my uncovered ann, or with a ring into my tin cup, or with a splash into my coffee pail that stood at my side full of water from a spring I had just passed. After two hours' trial, I found dropping off to sleep, under such oircumstances, wa?; out of the 2S PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE, il i ■ H I question ; so I sprang up, in no very amiable mood toward my host, and drew my boat clean from under the elm. I had refreshing slumber thenceforth, and the birds were astir in the morning long before I was. There is one way, at least, in which the denuding the country of its forests has lessened the rain-fall : in certain conditions of the atmosphere every tree is a great con- denser of moisture, as I had just observed in the case of the old elm ; little showers are generated in their branches, and in the B>ggrega.te the amount of water precipitated in this way is considerable. Of a foggy fiummer morning one may see little puddles of water standing on the stones beneath maple-trees, along the street, and in winter, when there is a sudden change from cold to warm, with fog, the water fairly runs down the trunks of the trees, and streams from their naked branches. The temperature of the tree is so much below that of the atmo- sphere in such cases that the condensation is very rapid. In lieu of these arboiteal rains we have the dew upon the grass ; but it is doubtful if the grass ever drips slb does a tree. The birds, I say, were astir in the morn- ing before I was, and some of them were < PEP ACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 29 more wakeful through the night, unless they sing in their dreams. At this season one may hear at intervals numerous bird voices during the night. The whip-poor-will was piping when I lay down, and I still heard one when I woke up after midnight. I heard the song-sparrow and the kingbird also, like watchers calling the hour, and several times I heard the cuckoo. Indeed, I am convinced that our cuckoo is to a considerable extent a night bird, and that he moves about freely from tree to tree. His peculiar guttural note, now here, now there, may be heard almost any summer night, in any part of the country, and occasionally his better known cuckoo call. He is a great recluse by day, but seems to wander abroad freely by night. The birds do indeed begin with the day. The farmer who is in the field at work while he can yet see stars catches their first m^iifn hymns. In the longest June days the robin strikes up about half -past three o*clock, and is quickly followed by the sparrow, the oriole, the cat-bird, the wren, the wood-thrush, aixd all the rest of the tuneful choir. Along the Potomac I have heard the Virginia cardinal whistle so loudly and persistently in the tree- tops above that sleeping after four o*clock was out of the question. Just before the sun I 30 FEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. is up there is a marked lull, during which I imagine the birds are at breakfast. While building their nest it is very early in the momiug that they put in their big strokes ; tho back of their day^s work is broken before you have begun yours. A lady once asked me if there was any individuality among the birds, or if those of the same kind were as near alike as two peas. I was obliged to answer that to the eye those of the same species were as near alike as two peas, but that in their songs there were often marks of originality* Gaged or domesticated birds develop notes and traits of their own, and among the more familiar orchard and garden birds one may notice the same ten- dency. I obser\''e a great variety of songs, and even qualities of voice, among the orioles and among the song-sparrows. On this trip my ear was especially attracted to some striking and original sparrow songs. At one point I was half afraid I had let pass an oppor- tunity to identify a new warbler, but finally concluded it was a song-sparrow. On an- other oceasiou I used to hear day after day a sparrow that appeared to have aome organic defect in its voice : part of its song was scarcely above a whi^>er, as if the bird was suffering from a very bad cold. I have heard PEPAOTON : A SUMMER V07AOE. 3^ a bobolink and a hermit thrush with similar defects of voice. I have heard a robin With a part of the whistle of the quail in his song. It Was out of time and out of tune, but the robin seemed insensible of the incongruity, and sang as loudly and as joyously as any of his mates. A cat-bird will sometimes show a special genius for mimicry, and I have known one to suggest very plainly some notes of the bobolink. There are numerous long covered bridges spanning the Delaware, and under some of these I saw the cliff-swallow at home, the nests being fastened to the under sides of the timbers, — as it were, suspended from ^he ceiling instead of being planted upon the shelving or perpendicular side, as is usual with them. To have laid the foundation, indeed, t^ have sprung the vault downward, and finished it successfully, must have re- quired special engineering skill. I had never before seen or heard of these nests being so placed. But birds are quick to adjust their needs to the exigencies of any case. Not long before I had seen in a deserted house, on the head of the Rondout, the chimney-swallowK entering the chamber through a stove-pipe hole In the rcof, and glueing their nests to the side of the rafters, like tl^e bam-swallow». 32 PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. I ;i!. I was now, on the third day, well down in the wilds of Colchester, with a current that made between two and three miles an hour, — just a summer idler's pace. The atmosphere of the river had improved much since the first day — was, indeed, without taint, — and the water was sweet and good. There were farm-houses at intervals of a mile or so ; but the amount of tillable land in the river valley or on the adjacent moun- tains was very small. Occasionally there would be forty or fifty acres of flat, usually in grass or com, with a thrif ty-looking farm- house. One could see how surely the land made the house and its surroundings ; good land bearing good buildings, and poor land poor. In mid-forenoon I reached the long placid eddy at Downsville, and here again fell in with two boys. They were out paddling about in a boat when I drew near, and they evidently regarded me in the light of a rare prize which fortune had wafted them. ** Ain't you glad we come, Benny?" I heard one of them observe to the other, aa they were conducting me to the best place to land. They were bright, good boys, off the same piece as my acquaintance of the day before, and about the same ages, — dif- !' pi; I PEPACTON : A SPMMER VOYAGE. 35 fering only in being village boys. With what curiosity they looked me over ! Where had I come from ; where was I going ; how long had I been on the way ; who built my boat ; was I a carpenter, to build such a neat craft, etc. They never had seen such a traveller before. Had I had no mishaps? And then they bethought them of the danger- ous passes that awaited me, and in good faith began to warn and advise me. They had heard the tales of raftsmen, and had conceived a vivid idea of the perils of the river below, gauging their notions of it from the spring and fall freshets toi^sing about the heavy and cumbrous rafts. There was a whirlpool, a rock eddy, and a binocle within a mile. I might be caught in the binocle, or engulfed in the whirlpool, or smashed up in the eddy. But I felt much reassured when they told me I had already passed several whirlpools and rock eddies ; but that terrible binocle, — what was that? I had never heard of such a monster. Oh, it was a still, miry place at the head of a big eddy. The current might carry me up there, but I could easily ^^et out again ; the rafts did. But there was another place I must beware oL where two eddies faced each other ; rafts- men were sometimes swept off there by the ^'v/. c '^1 t IT 1K.-.M a I 34 PEPACTOX : A SgMMER VOYAGE. i I Ir i bars, and drowned. And when I came to rock eddy, which I would know, because the river divided there (a part of the water being afraid to risk the eddy, I suppose), I must go ashore and survey the pass ; but in any case it would be prudent to keep to the left. I might stick on the rift, but that was nothing to being wrecked upon those rocks. The boys were quite in earnest, and I told them I would walk up to the village and post some letters to my friends before I braved all these dangers. So they marched me up the street, pointing out to their chums what they had found. ** Going way to Phil — What place is that near where the river goes into the sea ?" ** Philadelphia?" "Yes; thinks he may go way there. Won't he have fun ?*' The boys escorted me about the town, then back to the river, and got in their boat, and came down to the bend, where they could see me go through the whirlpool and pass the binocle (I am not sure about the ortho- graphy of the word, but I suppose it means a double, or a sort of mock eddy). I looked back as I shot over the rough current beside a gentle vortex, and saw them watching me with great interest Rock eddy, als6, was ,iil! PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 35 quite harmless, and I passed it without any preliminary survey. I nooned at Sodom, and found good milk in a humble cottage. In the afternoon I was amused by a great blue heron that kept flying up in advance of me. Every mile or so, as I rounded some point, I would come unexpectedly upon him, till finally he grew disgusted with my silent pursuit, and took a long turn to the left up along the side of the mountain, and passed back up the liver, uttering a hoarse, low note. The wind still boded ram, and about four o'clock, announced by deep-toned thunder and portentous clouds, it began to charge down the mountain-side in front of me. I ran ashore, covered my traps, and took my way up through an orchard to a quaint little farm-house. But there was not a soul about, outside rr in, that I could find, though the door was unfastened ; so I went into an open shed with the hens, and lounged upon some straw, while the unloosed floods came down. It was better than boating or fishing. Indeed, there are few summer pleasures to be placed before that of reclin. ing at ease directly under a sloping roof, after toil or travel iij the hot sun, and look- ing out into the rain-drenched air and fields. 36 PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. ' 1 1 It is such a vital, yet soothing spectacle. We sympathise with the earth. We know how good a bath is, and the unspeakable deliciousncss of water to a parched tongue. The office of the sunshine is slow, subtle, occult, unsuspected ; but when the clouds do their work the benefaction is so palpable and copious, so direct and wholesale, that all creatures take note of it, and for the most part rejoice in it. It is a completion, a consummation, a paying of a debt with a royal hand ; the measure is heaped and overflowing. It was the simple vapour of water that the clouds borrowed of the earth ; now they pay back more than water; the drops are charged with electricity and with the gases of the air, and have new solvent powers. Then, how the slate is sponged off, ai^d left all clean and new again ! In the shed where I was sheltered were many relics and odds and ends of the farm. In juxtaposition with two of the most stal' wart wagon or truck wheels I ever looked upon was a cradle of ancient and peculiar make, an aristocratic cradle, with high- turned posts and an elaborately carved and moulded body, that was suspended upon rods and swung from the top. How I should have liked to hear its history and |i ' M i i ill I H I PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 37 the Btory of the lives it had rocked, as the rain sang and the boughs tossed without. Above it was the cradle of a phoebe-bird saddled upon a stick that ran behind tlie rafter ; its occupants had not flown, and its story was easy to read. Soon after the first shock of the storm was over, and before I could see breaking sky, the birds tuned up with new ardour, — the robin, the indigo-bird, the purple finch, the sparrow, and in the meadow below the bobolink. The cockerel near me followed suit, and repeated his refrain till my medi- tations were so disturbed that I was com- pelled to eject him from the ^over, albeit he had the best right there. But he crowed his defiance with drooping tail from the yard in front. I, too, had mentally crowed over the good fortune of the shower, but be- fore I closed my eyes that night my crest was a good deal fallen, and I could have wished the friendly elements had not squared their accounts quite so readily and uproariously. The one shower did not exhalist the sup- ply a bit ; Nature's hand was full of trumps yet, — ^yea, and her sleeve too. I stopped at a trout-brook, which came down out of the mountains on the right, and took a few trout for my supper; but its current was I pi n PKPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. too roily from the shower for fly-fiBhing. Another farm-house attracted me, but there was no one at home ; so I picked a quart of strawberries in the meadow in front, not minding the wet grass, and about six o'clock, thinking another storm that had been threat- ening on my right had miscarried, I pushed off, and went floating down into the deepen- ing gloom of the river valley. The moun- tains, densely wooded from base to summit, shut in the view on every hand. They cut in from the right and from the left, one ahead of the other, matching like the teeth of an enormous trap ; the river was caught and bent, but not long detained by them. Presently I saw the rain creeping slowly over them in my rear, for the wind had changed ; but I apprehended nothing but a moderate sundown drizzle, such as we often get from the tail end of a shower, and drew up in the eddy of a big rock under an over- hanging tree till it should have passed. But it did not pass ; it thickened tuid deepened, and reached a steady pour by the time I had calculated the sun would be gilding the mountain-tops. I had wrapped my rubber coat about my blankets and groceries, and bared my back to the storm. In sullen silence I saw the night settling down and the PEPAGTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 39 rain increasing ; my roof -tree gave way, and every leaf poured its accumulated drops upon me. There were streams and splashes where before there had been little more than a mist. I was getting well soaked and uncomplimen- tary in my remarks on the weather. A saucy cat-bird, ner.r by, flirted and squealed very plainly, ** There! there ! What did I tell you ! What did I tell you ! Pretty pickle ! pretty pickle ! pretty pickle to be in ! " But I had been in worse pickles, though if the water had been salt my pickling had been pretty thorough. Seeing the wind was in the north- east, and that the weather had fairly stolen a march on me, I let go my hold of the tree, and paddled rapidly to the opposite shore, which was low and pebbly, drew my boat up on a little peninsula, turned her over upon a spot which I cleared of its coarser stone, propped up one end with the seat, and crept beneath. I would now test the virtues of my craft as a roof, and I found she was without flaw, though she was pretty narrow. The tension of her timber was such that the rain upon her bottom made a low, musical hum. Crouched on my blankets and boughs, — for I had gathered a good supply of the latter before the rain overtook me, — and dry only about my middle, I placidly took •M 40 PEPACTON I A SUMMER VOYAGE. life as it caniv A great blue heron flew by, and let off something like ironical horse laughter. Before it became dark I proceeded to eat my supper, — my berries, but not my trout. What a fuss we make about the * * hulls " upon strawberries ! We are hyper critical ; we may yet be glad to dine off the hulls alone. Some people see something to pick and carp at in every good that comes to them ; I was thankful that I had the berries, and resolutely ignored their little scalloped ruffles, which I found pleased the eye and did not disturb the palate. When bed-time arrived I found undress- ing a little awkward, my berth was so low ; there was plenty of room in the aisle, and the other passengers were nowhere to be seen, but I did not venture out. It rained nearly all night, but the train made good speed, and reached the land of daybreak nearly on time. The water in the river had crept up during the night to within a few inches of my boat, but I 'rolled over and took another nap, all the same. Then I arose, had a delicious bath in the sweet, swift-running current, and turned my thoughts toward breakfast. The making of the coffee was the only serious problem. With everything soaked and a fine rain still PEP ACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 41 falling, how shall one b^Ud a fire? I made my way to a little island above in quest of drift-wood. Before I had found the wood I chanced upon another patch of delicious wild strawberries, and took an appetiser of them out of hand. Presently I picked up a yellow birch stick the size of my arm. The wood was decayed, but the bark was per- fect. I broke it in two, punched out the rotten wood, and had the bark intact. The fatty or resinous substance in this bark pre- serves it, and makes it excellent kindling. With some seasoned twigs and a scrap of paper I soon had a fire going that answered my every purpose. More berries were picked while the coffee was brewing, and the break- fast was a success, t ;'..., The camper-out often finds himself in what seems a distressing predicament to people seated in their snug, well-ordered houses ; but there is often a real satisfaction when things come to their worst, — a satis- faction in seeing what a small matter it is, aft^r all ; that one is really neither sugar nor salt, to be afraid of the wet ; and that life is just as well worth living beneath a scow or a dug-out as beneath the highest and broadest roof in Christendom. By ten o'clock it became necessary to I 42 PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. move, on account of the rise of the water, and as the rain had abated I picked up and continued my journey. Before long, how- ever, the rain increased again, and I took refuge in a bam. The snug, tree-embowered farm-house looked very inviting, just across the road from the bam ; but as no one was about, and no faces appeared at the window that I might judge of the inmates, I con- tented myself with the hospitality the barn offered, filling my pockets with some dry birch shavings I found there where the farmer had made an ox yoke, against the needs of the next kindling. After an hour's detention I was off again. I stopped at Baxter's Brook, which flows hard by the classic hamlet of Harvard, and tried for trout, but with poor success, as I did not think it worth while to go far up stream. At several points I saw rafts of hemlock lumber tied to the shore, ready to take ad- vantage of the first freshet. Rafting is an important industry for a hundred miles or more along the Delaware. The lumbermen sometimes take their families or friends, and have a jollification all the way to Trenton or to Philadelphia. In some places the speed is very great, almost equalling that of an express train. The passage of such PEP ACTON : A SUMMER VOrAGE. 43 »fi places as Cochecton Falls and '* Foul Rift " is attended with no little danger. The raft is guided by two immense oars, one before and one behmd. I frequently saw these huge implements in the drift-wood along shore, suggesting some colossal race of men. The raftsmen have names of their own. From the upper Delaware, where I had set in, small rafts are run down which they call "colts." They come frisking down at a livel3' pace. At Hancock they usually couple two rafts together, when I suppose the;,^ have a span of colts ; or do two colts make one horse ? Some parts of the framework of the raft they call "grubs;" much depends upon these grubs. The lumbermen were and are a hardy^ virile race. The Hon. Charles Knapp, of Deposit, now eighty-three years of age, but with the look and step of a man of sixty, told me he had stood nearly all one December day in the water to his waist, reconstructing his raft, which had gone to pieces on the head of an island. Mr. Knapp 3iad passed the first half of his life in iirbhester and Hancock, and, although no sportsman, had once taken part in a great bear hunt there. The boar was an enor- mous one, and was hard pressed by a gang of men and dogs. Their muskets and as- 44 PEPAOTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. fi'!' i i Qaults upon the beast with clubs had made no impression. Mr. Knapp saw where the bear was coming, and he thought ke would show them how easy it was to despatch a bear with a club, if you only knew where to strike. He had seen how quickly the largest hog would wilt beneath a slight blow across the *' small of the back." So, armed with an immense handspike, he took up a position by a large rock that the bear must pass. On she came, panting and nearly exhausted, and at the right moment down came the club with great force upon the small of her back. ** If a fly had alighted upon her," said Mr, Knapp, '* I think she would have paid just as much attention to it as she did to me." Early in the afternoon I encountered another boy, Henry IngersoU, who was so surprised by my sudden and unwonted ap- pearance that he did not know east from west. ** Which way is west?'* I inquired, to see if my own head was straight on the subject. ^'f ** That way," he said, indicating east within a few degrees. "You are wrong," I replied. "Where does the sun rise ? ' "There," he said, pointing almost in the direction he had pointed before. PEPACTON ; A SUMMER VOYAGE. 45 '' But does not the sun rise in the east here as well as elsewhere ?" I rejoined. ** Well, they call that west, anyhow." But Henry's needle was subjected to a dis- turbing influence just then. His house was near the river, and he was its sole guardian and keeper for the time : his father had gone up to the next neighbour's (it was Sunday), and his sister had gone with the school- mistress down the road to get black birch. He came out in the road, with wide eyes, to view me as I passed, when I drew rein, and demanded the points of the compass, as above. Then I shook my sooty pail at him and asked for milk. Yes, I could have some milk, but I would have to wait till his sister came back ; after he had recovered a little, he concluded he could get it. He came for my pail, and then his boyish curiosity appeared. My story interested him immensely. He had seen twelve summers, but he had only been four miles from home up and down the river ; he had been down to the Blast Branch, and he had been up to Trout Brook. He took a pecuniary interest in m^. What did my pole cost ? What my rubber coat, and what my revolver ? The latter he must take in his hand ; he had never seen such a thing to shoot with before in his life, etc. He \W .;||, !l! I 46 PEPACTON I A SUMMER VOYAGE. thought I might make the trip cheaper and easier by stage and by the cars. He went to school : there were six scholars in sum- mer, one or two more in winter. The popula- tion is not crowded in the town of Hancock, certainly, and never will be. The people live close to the bone, as Thoreau would say, or rather close to the stump. Many years ago the young men there resolved upon hav- ing a ball. They concluded not to go to a hotel, on account of the expense, and so chose a private house. There was a man in the neighbourhood who could play the fife ; he offered to furnish the music for seventy-five cents. But this was deemed too much, so one of the party agreed to whistle. History does not tell how many beaux there were bent upon this reckless enterprise, but there were three girls. For refreshments they bought a couple of gallons of whisky and a few pounds of sugar. When the spree was over and the expenses were reckoned up, there was a shilling — a York shilling — apiece to pay. Some of the revellers were dissatisfied with this charge, and intimated that the managers had not counted themselves in, but taxed the whole expense upon the rest of the party. As I moved on I saw Henry's sister and I PEPACTON i A SUMMER VOYAGE. 47 the schoolmistress picking their way along the muddy road near the river's bank. One of them saw me, and, dropping her skirts, said to the other (I coald read the motions), ** See that man!" The other lowered her flounces, and looked up and down the road, then glanced over into the field, and lastly out upon the river. They paused and had a good look at me, though I could see that their impulse to run away, like that of a frightened deer, was strong. At the East Branch the Big Beaver Kill joins the Delaware, almost doubling its volume. Here I struck the railroad, the forlorn Midland, and here another set of men and manners cropped out, — what may be called the railroad conglomerate overlying this mountain freestone. ** Where did you steal that boat?" and, ""What you running away for?" greeted me from a hand-car that went by. ^ I paused for some time and watched the fish-hawks, or ospreys, of which there were nearly a dozen sailing about above the junction of the two streams, squealing and diving, and occasionally striking a fish on the rifts. I am convinced that tlie fish- hawk sometimes feeds on the wing. I saw him do it on this and on another occasion. »*i ;:il: 4f PEP ACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. li 'Hi' ' I ;l ! I i< II L : He raises himself by a peculiar motion, and brings his head and his talons together, and apparently takes a bite of a fish. While doing this his flight presents a sharply undulating line ; at the crest of each rise the morsel is taken. In a long, deep eddy under the west shore I came upon a brood of wild ducks, the hooded merganser. The young were about half grown, but of course entirely destitute of plumage. They started off at great speed, kicking the water into foam behind them, the mother duck keeping upon their flank and rear. Near the outlet of the pool I saw them go ashore, and I expected they would conceal themselves in the woods ; but as I drew near the place they came out, and I saw by their motions they were going to make a rush by me up stream. At a signal from the old one, on they came, and passed within a few feet of me. It was almost incredible, the speed they made. Their pink feet were like swiftly revolving wheels placed a little to the rear ; their breasts just skimmed the surface, and the water was beaten into spray behind them. They had no need of wings ; even the mother bird did not use hers; a steamboat could hardly have kept up with them. I dropped my PEPACTON : A SUMMER VOYAGE. 49 paddle, and cheered. They kept the race up for a long distance, and I saw them making a fresh spirt as I entered upon the rift and dropped quickly out of sight. I next disturbed an eagle in his meditations upon a dead tree-top, and a cat sprang out of some weeds near the foot of the tree. Was he watching for puss, while she was watching for some smaller prey ? I passed Partridge Island — which is or used to be the name of a post-office — un- wittingly, and encamped for the night on an island near Hawk's Point. I slept in my boat on the beach, and in the morning my locks were literally wet with the dews of the night, and my blankets too; so I waited for the sun to dry them. As I was gathering drift-wcod for a fire, a voice came over from the shadows of the east shore : ** Seems to me you lay abed pretty late ! " ** I call this early," I rejoined, glancing at the sun. ** Wall, it may be airly in the forenoon, but it ain't veiy airly in the momin* ; " a distinction I was forced to admit. Before I had re-embarked some cows came down to the shore, and I watched them ford the river to the island. They did it with great ease and precision. I was told they will PefK -. D so PEFAOTON : A SCMMER VOYAOE. II III r! I 1: sometimes, during high water, swim over to the islands, striking in well up stream, and swimming diagonally across. At one point some cattle had crossed the river, and evidently got into mischief, for a large dog rushed them down the bank into the current, and worried them all the way over, part of the time swimming and part of the time leaping very high, as a dog will in deep snow, coming down with a great splash. The cattle were shrouded with spray as they ran, and altogether it was a novel picture. My voyLge ended that forenoon at Han- cock, and was crowned by a few idyllic days with some friends in their cottage in the woods by Lake Oquaga, a body of crystal water on the hills near Deposit, and a haven as peaceful and perfect as voyager ever came to port in. SPRINGS. \ ,' M m 1% n % ( • ? SPRINGS. I*ll show thee the lest springs.— Tempeht, A MAN who came back to the place of his birth in the East, after an absence of a quarter of a century in the West, said the one thing he most desired to see about the old homestead was the spring. This, at least, he would find unchanged. Here his lost youth would come back to him. The faces of his father and mother he might not look upon ; but the face of the spring that had mirroried theirs and his own so oft, he fondly imagined would beam on him as of old. I can well believe that in that all but springless country in which he had cast his lot, the vision, the remembrance of the foun- tain that flowed by his father's doorway, so prodigal of its precious gifts, has awakened in him the keenest longings and regrets. Did he not remember the path, also ? for next to the spring itself is the path that leads to it. Indeed, of all footpaths, the spring-path is the most suggestive. 98 »«• |^5f<"-" M SPRINGS. This is a path with somethmg at the end of it, and the beet of good fortune awaits him who walks therein. It is a well-worn path, and, though generally up or down a hill, it is the easiest of all paths to travel : we forget our fatigue when going to the spring, and we have lost it when we turn to come away. See with what alacrity:' the labourer ha&.tens along it, all sweaty from the fields ; see the boy or girl running with pitcher or pail ; see the welcome shade of the spreading tree that presides over its marvellous birth ! In the woods or on the mountain -side follow the path, and you are pretty sure to find a spring ; all creatures are going that way night and day, and they make a path. A spring is always a vital point in the landsciipe, it is indeed the eye of* the fields ; and hoy often, too, it has a noble eyebrow in the shape of an overhanging bark or ledge. Or else its site is marked by some tree which tl:3 pioneer has wisely left standing, and which sheds a coolness and freshness that make the wat( v more sweet. In the shade of this tree the harvesters sit and eat their lunch and look out upon the quivering air of the fields. Here the Sunday saunterer stops and lounges with his book, and bathes his hanvls and face in the cool fountain. SPRINGS. St Hither the strawberry-girl comes with her basket and pauses a moment in the green shade. The ploughman leaves his plough, and ill long strides approaches the life-ienewiug spot, while his team, that cannot follow, look wistfully after him. Here the cattle love to pass the heat of the day, and hither come the birds to wash themselves and make their toilets. Indeed, a spring is always an oasis in the desert of the fields. It is a creative and generative centre. It attracts all things to itself, — the grasses, the mosses, the flowers, the wild plants, the great trees. The walker finds it out, the camping party seek it, the pioneer builds his hut or his house near it. When the settler or squatter has found a good spring, he has found a good place to begin life ; he has found the foun- tain-head of much that he is seeking in this world. The chances are that he has fc md a southern and eastern exposure ; for it is a fact that water doe^ not readily flow north i the valleys mostly open the other way ; and it is quite certain he has found a measure of salubrity; for where water flows fever abideth not. The spring, too, keeps him to the right belt, out of the low valley, and off the top of the hill. ;i!l,J- ' I » SPRINGS. When John Winthrop decided upon the site where now otands the city of Boston, as a proper place for a settlement, he was chiefly attracted by a large and excellent spring of water that flowed there. The in- fant city was bom of this fountain. There seems a kind of perpetual spring- time about the place where water issues from the ground — a freshness and a green- ness that are ever renewed. The grass never fades^ the ground is never parched or frozen. There is warmth there in winter and coolness in summer. The temperature is equalised. In March or April the spring runs are a bright emerald, while the sur- rounding fields are yet brown and sere, and in fall they are yet green when the first snow covers them. Thus every fountain by the roadside is a fountain of youth and of life. This is what the old fables finally mean. An intermittent spring is shallow ; it has no deep root, and is like an inconstant friend. But a perennial spring, one whose ways are appointed, whose foundation is established, what a profound and beautiful symbol ! In fact, there is no more large and universal symbol in Nature than the spring, if there is any other capable of such wide and various applications. SPRINGS. 57 What preparation seems to have been made for it in the conformation of the ground, even in the deep underlying geolo- gical strata ! Vast rocks and ledges are piled for it, or cleft asunder that it may iind a way. Sometimes it is a trickling thread of silver down the sides of a seanred and scarred precipice. Then again the stratified rock is like a just-lifted lid, from beneath which the water issues. Or it slips noiselessly out of a deep dimple in the fields. Occasionally it bubbles up in the valley as if forced up by the surrounding hills. Many springs, no doubt, find an outlet in the beds of the large rivers and lakes, and are un- known to all but the fishes. They probably find them out and make much of them. The trout certainly do. Find a place in the creek where a spring issues, or where it flows into it from a near bank, and you have found a most likely place for trout. They deposit their spawn there in the fall, warm their noses there in winter, and cool themselves there in summer. I have seen the patriarchs of the tribe of an old and much-fished stream, seven or eight enormous fellows, congregated in such a place. The boys found it out and went with a bag and bagged them all. In another place a trio of 58 SPRINGS. I i I large trout, that knew and deapised all the arts of the fishermen, took up their abode in a deep, dark hole in the edge of the wood that had a spring flowing into a shallow part of it. In midsummer they were wont to come out from their safe retreat and bask in the spring, their immense bodies but a few inches under water. A youth, who had many times vainly sounded their dark hiding- place with his hook, happening to come along with his rifle one day, shot the three, one after another, killing them by the concussion of the bullet on the water immediately over them. The ocean itself is known to possess springs, copious ones, in many places the fresh water rising up through the heavier salt as through a rock, and aflbrding supplies to vessels at the surface. Off the coast of Florida many of these submarine springs have been discovered, the outlet, probably, of the streams and rivers that disappear in the " sinks " of that State. It is a pleasant conception, that of the unscientific folk, that the springs are fed directly by the sea, or that the earth is full of veins or arteries tiiat connect with the great reservoir of waters. But when science turns the conception over and makes the p • SPRINGS. 59 connection in the air — disclosing the great water-main in the clouds, and that the mighty engine of the hydraulic system of Nature is the sun, the fact becomes even more poetical, does it not ? This is one of the many cases where science, instead of curtailing the imagination, makes new and large demands upon it. The hills are great sponges that do not and cannot hold the water that is precipi- tated upon them, but that let it filter through at the bottom. This is the way the sea has robbed the earth of its various salts, its potash, its lime, its magnesia, and many other mineral elements. It is found that the oldest upheavals, th«se sections of the country that have been longest exposed to the leeching and washing o^ the rains, are poorest in those substances that go to the making of the osseous frame-work of man and of the animals. Wheat does not grow well there, and the men Lorn and reared there are apt to have brittle bones. An im- portant part of those men went down stream ages before they were bom. The water of such sections is now soft, and free from min- eral substances, but not more wholesome ou that account. The gigantic springs of the country that It M 1 I'l ill' jjlii I 60 SPRINGS. have not been caught in any of the great natural basins, are mostly confined to the limestone region of the Middle and Southern States, — the valley of Virginia and its con- tinuation and deflections into Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Through this belt are found the great caves and the subterranean rivers. The waters have here worked like enormous moles, and have honeycombed the founda- tions of the earth. They have great high- ways beneath the hills. Water charged with carbonic acid gas has a very sharp tooth and a powerful digestion, and no limestone rock can long resist it. Sherman's soldiers tell of a monster spring in Northern Ala- bama,—a river leaping full-grown from the bosom of the earth ; and of another at the bottom of a large, deep pit in the rocks, that continues its way underground. There are many springs in Florida of this character, large underground streams that have breathing-holes, as it were, here and there. In some places the water rises and fills the bottoms of deep bowl-shaped depres- sions ; in other localities it is reached through round natural well-holes ; a bucket is let down by a rope, and if it becomes detached is quickly swept away by the current. Some SPRINGa 4lt of the Florida springs are perhaps the largest in the world, affording room and depth enough for steamboats to move and turn in them. Green Cove Spring is said to be like a waterfall reversed ; a cataract rushing up- Wi^rd through a transparent liquid instead of leaping downward through the air. There are one or two of these enormous springs also in Northern Mississippi,— spnngs so large that it seems as if the whole continent must nurse them. The Valley of the Shenandoah is remark- able for its large springs. The town of Winchester, a town of several thousand in- habitants, is abundantly supplied with water from a single spring that issues on higher ground near by. Several other springs in the vicinity afford rare mill-power. At Harrisonburg, a county town further up the valley^ I was attracted by a low ornamental dome resting upon a circle of columns, on the edge of the square that contained the court-house, and was surprised to find that it gave shelter to an immense spring. This spring was also capable of watering the town or several towns ; stone Soops lead down to it at the bottom of a large stone basin. There was a pretty constant string of pails to and from it. Aristotle called certain ffTfP 1 I '!' i liiii 62 SPRINGS. springs of his country *' cements of society," because the young people so frequently met there and sang and conversed ; and I have little doubt this spring is of like social im- portance. There is a famous spring at San Antonio, Texas, which is described by that excellent traveller, Frederick Law Olmsted. * The whole river,'* he says, " gushes up in one sparkling burst from the earth, with all the accessories of smaller springs, mosi», pebbles, foliage, seclusion, etc. Its effect is overpowering. It is beyond your possible conception of a spring." Of like copiousness and splendour is the Caledonia spring, or springs, in Western New York. They give birth to a white- pebbled, transparent stream, several rods wide and two or three feet deep, that flows eighty barrels of water per second, and is alive with trout. The trout are fat and gamey even in winter. The largest spring in England, called the Well of St Winifred, at Holywell, flows less than three barrels per second. I re- cently went many miles out of my way to see the famous trout spring in Warren CJounty, New Jersey. This spring flows about one thoussjid gallons of water per SPBINOS. 63 minute, which has a uniform temperature of fifty degrees winter and summer. It is near the Musconetcong Creek, which looks aa if it were made up of similar springs. On the parched and sultry summer day upon which my visit fell, it was well worth walking many miles just to see such a volume of water issue from the ground. I felt with the boy Petrarch, when he first beheld a famous spring, that ** Were I master of such a fountain I would prefer it to the finest of cities. " A large oak leans down over the spring and affords an abun- dance of shade. The water does not bubble up, but comes straight out with great speed, like a courier with important news, and as if its course underground had been a direct and an easy one for a long distance. Springs that issue in this way bave a sort of vertebra, a ridgy and spine-like centre that suggests ^he gripe and push there is in this element. What would one not give for such a spring in his back-yard, or front-yard, or anywhere near his house, or in any of his fields ? One would be tempted to move his house to it, if the spring could not be brought to the house. Its mere poetic value and suggestion would be worth all the art and ornament to be had. It would f 64 SPRINGS. irrigate one's heart and character as well as his acres. Then one might have a Naiad Queen to do his churning and to saw his wood ; then one might '* see his chore done by the gods themselves, " as Emerson says, or by the nymphs, which is just as well. I know a homestead situated on one of the picturesque branch valleys of the Housa- tonic, that has such a spring flowing by the foundation walls of the house, and not a little of the strong overmastering local attachment that holds the owner there is bom of that — his native spring. He could not, if he would, break from it. He says that when he looks down into it he has a feeling that he is an amphibious animal that has somehow got stranded. A long, gentle flight of stone steps leads from the back porch down to it under the branches of a lofty elm. It wells up through the w;hite sand and gravel as through a sieve, and fills the broad space that has been ar- ranged for it so gently and imperceptibly that one does not suspect its copiousness until he has seen the overflow. It turns ho wheel, yet it lends a pliant hand to many of the affairs of that household. It is a refrigerator in summer and a frost-proof envelope in wintep*, and a fountain of de- i SPRINGS. 6s lights the year round. Trout come up from the Weebutook River and dwell there and become domesticated, and take lumps of butter from your hand, or rake the ends of your fingers if you tempt them. It is a kind of sparkling and ever-washed lar- der. Where are the berries? where is the butter, the milk, the steak, the melon ? In the spring. It preserves, it ventilates, it cleanses. It is a board of health and general purveyor. It is equally for use and for pleasure. Nothing degrades it, and nothing can enhance its beauty. It is picture and parable, and an instrument of music. It is servant and divinity in one. The milk of forty cows is cooled in it, and never a drop gets into the cans, though they are plunged to the brim. It is as in- sensible to drought and rain as to heat and cold. It is planted upon the sand, and yet it abideth like a house upon a rock. It evidently has some relation to a little brook that flows down through a deep notch in the hills half a mile distant, because on one occasion, when the brook was being ditched or dammed, the sprfng showed great pertur- bation. Eveiy nymph in it was filled with sudden alarm, and kicked up a commotion. In some sections of the country, when i n ir 66 SPRINCS. there is no spring near the house, the farmer, with much labour and pains, brings one from some up-lying field or wood. Pine and poplar logs are bored and laid in a trench, and the spring practically moved to the desired spot. The ancient Persians had a law, that whoever thus conveyed the water of a spring to a spot not watered before should enjoy many immunities under the state not granted to others. Hilly and mountainous countries do not •always abound in good springs. When the stratum is vertical, or has too great a dip, the water is not collected in large veins, but is rather held as it falls and oozes out slowly at the surface over the top of the rock. On this account one of the most famous grass and dairy sections of New York is poorly supplied with springs. Every creek starts in a bog or marsh, and good water can be had only by excavating. What a charm lurks about those springs that are found near the tops of mountains, so small that they get lost amid the rocks and debris f and never reach the valley, and so cold that they make the throat ache ! Every hunter and mountain-climber can tell you of such — usually on the last rise before the summit is cleared. It is eminently the SPRINGS. 67 hunter's spring. I do not know whether or not the foxes and other wild creatures lap at it, but their pursuers are quite apt to pause there and take breath or eat their lunch. The mountain-climbers in summer hail it with a shout. It is always a surprise, and raises the spirits of the dullest. Then it seems to be bom of M^ildness and remote- ness, and to savour of some special benefit or good fortune. A spring in the valley is an idyl, but a spring on the mountain is a genuine lyrical touch. It imparts a mild thrill ; and if one were to call any springs ** miracles," as the natives of Cashmere are said to regard their fountains, it would be such as these. What secret attraction draws one in his summer walk to touch at all the springs on his route, and to pause a moment at each, as if what he was in quest of would be likely to turn up there ? I can seldom pass a spring without doing homage to it. It is the shrine at which I oftenest worship. If I find one fouled with leaves or trodden full by cattle, I take as much pleasure in cleaning it out as a devotee in setting up the broken image of his Saint. Though I chance not to want to drink there, I like to behold a clear foun- tain, and I may want t>o drink next time I • c m ir^ i; i '!!!!!!! 68 SPRINGS. pass, or some traveller, or heifer, or milch cow may. Leaves have a strange fatality for the spring. They come from afar to get into it. In a grove or in the woods they drift into it and cover it up like snow. Lr^fce in November, in clearing one out, I brought forth a frog from his hibeniacle in the leaves at the bottom. He was very black, and he rushed about in a bewildered manner like one suddenly aroused from his sleep. There is no place more suitable for statu- ary than about a spring or fountain, especi- ally in parks or improved fields. Here one seems to expect to see figures and bending forms. ** Where a spring rises or a river flows," says Seneca, ** there should we build altars, and ofier sacrifices.'^ I have spoken of the hunter's spring. The traveller's spring is a little cup or saucer- shaped fountain set in the bank by the road- side. The harvester's spring is beneath a wide-spreading tree in the fields. The lover's spring is down a lane under a hill. There is a good screen of rocks and bushes. The hermit's spring is on the margin of a lake in the woods. The fisherman's spring iz by the river. The miner finds his spring in the bowels of the r^ountain. The soldier's spring is wherever he can fill his canteen. SPBINOS. 69 The spring where schoolboys go to fill the pail is a long way up or down a hill, and has just been roiled by a frog or musk-rat, and the boys have to wait till it settles. There is yet the milkman's spring that never dries, the water of which is milky and opaque. Sometimes it flows out of a chalk cUff. This latter is a hard spring : all the otherii are soft. There is another m\e to this subject, — the marvellous, not to say the miraculous ; and if I were to advert to all the curious or infernal springs that are described by travellers or others, — the sulphur springs,' the mud springs, the sour springs, the soap springs, the soda springs, the blowing springs, the spouting springs, the boiling springs not one mile from Tophet, the springs that rise and fall with the tide, the spring spoken of by Vitruvius, that gave unwonted loudness to the voice ; the spring that Plutarch telis about, that had some- thing of the flavour of wine, because it was supposed that Bacchus had been washed in it immediately after his birth ; the :ipring that Herodotus describes, — wi»^ man and credu- lous boy that he was,— called the ** Fountain of the Sun," which was warm at dawn, cold at noon, and hot at midnight ; the springs m^ i If •f J ^• ' 1 1 r i 'T rii \' II 1 iimi m 70 SPRINGS. at San Filippo, Italy, that have built up a calcareous wall over a mile long and several hundred feet thick ; the renowned springs of Cashmere, that are believed by the people to be the source of the comeliness of their women, etc. , — if I were to follow . up my subject in this direction, I say, it would lead me into deeper and more !^roubled waters than I am in quest of at present. Pliny, in a letter to one of his friends, gives the following account of a spring that flowed near his Laurentine villa : — « i rri There is a spring which rises in a neigh- bouring mountain, and running among the rocks is received into a little banqueting- room, artificially formed for that purpose, from whence, after being detained a short time, it falls into the Larian Lake. The nature of this spring is extremely curious : it ebbs and flows regularly three times a day. The increase and decrease are plainly visible, and exceedingly interesting to ob- serve. You sit down by the side of the fountain, and while you are taking a repast and drinking its water, which is exceedingly cool, you see it gradually rise and fall. If you place a ring or anything else at the bottom when it is dry, the water creeps gradually up, first gently washing, finally covering it entirely, and then, little by little, subsides again. If you wait long SPBINOS. 7t enough, yon may see it thus alternately advance and recede three successive times. Pliny suggests four or five explanations of this phenomenon, but is probably wide of the mark in all but the fourth one : — "Or is there rather a certain reservoir that contains these waters in the bowels of the earth,