CHAPTER XV.

As the shouts of laughter elicited by the host's remark rang through the

hall, drowning the muttered response of the comedian, Leta glided softly

and rapidly from behind the screen of tapestry which veiled the open

doorway. There, crouching out of sight, she had remained concealed for

the last hour--watching the revellers through a crevice in the

needlework, and vainly hoping, either in the words or face of Sergius,

to detect some tone or expression indicative of regretful thought or

recollection of herself. When at last her name had been mentioned, for a

moment she had eagerly held her breath, lest she might lose one syllable

from which an augury of her fate could be drawn. Then, repressing, with

a violent effort, the cry of despair which rose to her lips, upon

hearing herself thus coolly and disdainfully surrendered as the stake of

a game of dice, and with less apparent regret than would have been felt

for the loss of a single gold piece, she drew the folds of her dress

closely about her and passed out.

Out through the antechamber--down the stairway--and into the central

court; no other purpose guiding her footsteps than that of finding some

place where she could reflect, without disturbance, upon the fate before

her. In that heated hall she must have died; but it might be that in the

cool, open air, she could conquer the delirium which threatened to

overwhelm her, and could thus regain her self-control. If only for five

minutes, it might be well. With her quick energy and power of decision,

even five minutes of cool, deliberate counsel with herself might suffice

to shape and direct her whole future life.

Hardly realizing how she had come there, she found herself sitting upon

the coping of the courtyard fountain. The night was dark, for thick

clouds shut out the gleam of moon and stars. No one could see her, nor

was it an hour when any one was likely to be near. From one end to the

other the court was deserted, except by herself. No light, other than

the faint glow from the windows of the banquet hall upon the story above

her. No sound beyond the sullen splash of the water falling into the

marble basin of the fountain. There was now but little to interfere with

deliberate reflection.

What demon had possessed the Fates that they should have brought this

lot upon her? It could not be the destiny which had been marked out for

her from the first. That had been a different one, she was sure. Her

instinct had whispered peace and success to her. Such were the blessings

which should have been unravelled for her from off the twirling spindle;

but some malignant spirit must have substituted another person's

deserved condemnation in place of her more kindly lot.

That she had failed in attaining the grand end of her desires was not,

of itself, the utmost of her misfortune. She had aimed high, because it

was as easy to do that as to accept a lower object of ambition. She had

taken her course, believing that all things are possible to the

energetic and daring, but, at the same time, fully realizing the chances

of failure. But to fail had simply seemed to her to remain where she

was, instead of ascending higher--to miss becoming the wife of the

imperator, but to continue, as before, the main guide and direction of

his thoughts, impulses, and affections.

And now, without previous token or warning, had come upon her the

terrible realization that she had not only gained nothing, but had lost

all, and that the fatal chance which had fettered her schemes, had also

led to her further degradation. Thrown aside like a broken toy-with a

jeering confession that she had wearied her possessor--with a cool,

heartless criticism upon her character, and with cruel prophecies about

her future--gambled for with one whose sight filled her with

abhorrence--and, when won, made over to him as a bone is tossed to a

dog--what more bitterness could be heaped upon her?

But there was now no use in mourning about the past. What had been done

could not be altered. Nor could she disguise from herself the

impossibility of ever regaining her former position and influence. Those

had passed away forever. She must now look to the future alone, and

endeavor so to shape its course as to afford herself some relief from

its terrors. Possibly there might yet be found a way of escape.

Should she try to fly? That, she knew, could not be done--at least,

alone. The world was wide, but the arm of the imperial police was long;

and though she might, for a little while, wander purposelessly hither

and thither, yet before many hours the well-directed efforts of a

pursuer would be sure to arrest her. She could die--for in every place

death is within reach of the resolute; but she did not wish to die. For

one instant, indeed, she thought of the Tiber, and the peace which might

be found beneath its flow--but only for an instant. And she almost

thanked the gods in her heart that it had not yet gone so far with her

as that.

Burying her face in her hands, she sat for a moment, endeavoring to

abstract her thoughts from all outward objects, so as the more readily

to determine what course to adopt. But for a while it seemed as though

it was impossible for her to fix her mind aright. Each instant some

intruding trifle interfered to distract her attention from the only

great object which now should claim it. A long-forgotten incident of the

past would come into her mind--or perhaps some queer conceit which at

the time had caused laughter. She did not laugh now, but none the less

would she find herself revolving the merits of the speech or action.

Then, the soft fall of the water into the fountain basin annoyed her,

and it occurred to her that it might be this--which prevented undivided

reflection. Stooping over, therefore, and feeling along the edge of the

basin, she found the vent of the pipes, and stopped the flow. At once

the light stream began to diminish and die away, until in a moment the

water was at rest, except for the few laggard drops which one by one

rolled off the polished shoulders of the bronze figures. These gradually

all trickled down, and then it seemed as though at last there must be

silence. But the murmur of the evening breeze among the trees

intervened; and, far more exasperating than all, she could now hear the

bursts of merriment which rang out from the banqueting room overhead.

Therefore, once more putting her hand into the basin, she turned on the

flow, and the gentle stream again sprang from the outstretched cup and

fell down, deadening all lesser sounds.

Then Leta looked up at the sky, overspread with its thick pall of

clouds, and wondered vacantly whether there would be rain upon the

morrow, and if so, whether the games appointed for the new amphitheatre

would take place. But she recovered herself with a start, and again

buried her face in her hands. What were games and combats of that kind

to her? She was to enter upon a different kind of struggle. She must

reflect--reflect!--and when she had reflected, must act!

For ten minutes she thus remained; and now, indeed, seemed to have

gained the required concentration of thought. No outward sound disturbed

her. Once a Nubian slave, who had heard the stoppage of the fountain's

flow, emerged from beneath an archway, as though to examine into the

difficulty. Finding that the water was still playing as usual, he

imagined that he must have been mistaken, gave utterance to an oath in

condemnation of his own stupidity, slowly walked around the basin,

looked inquiringly at Leta, and, for the moment, made as though he would

have accosted her--and then, changing his mind, withdrew and walked back

silently into the house. Still she did not move.

At length, however, she raised her head and stood upright. Her eyes now

shone with deep intensity of purpose, and her lips were firmly set.

Something akin to a smile flickered around the corners of her mouth,

betraying not pleasure, but satisfaction. She had evidently reflected to

some purpose, and now the trial for action had arrived.

'Strange that I should not have thought of it before,' she murmured to

herself. Then stepping under the archway which led from the courtyard

into the palace, she reached up against the wall and took down two keys

which hung there. Holding them tightly, so that they might not clink

together, she glided along, past the fountain--through the clump of

plane trees--keeping as much as possible in the deeper shadows of arch

and shrubbery--and so on along the whole length of the court, until she

stood by the range of lower erections which bounded its farther

extremity. Then, fitting one of the keys into an iron door, she softly

unlocked it.

Entering, she stood within a low stone cell. It was the prison house of

the palace, used for the reception of new slaves, and for the punishment

of such others as gave offence. It was a long, narrow apartment, paved

with stone and lighted by a single grated aperture set high in the wall

upon the courtyard side. The place was of sufficient dimensions to hold

fifty or sixty persons, but, in the present case, there was but one

tenant--Cleotos---Not even a guard was with him, for the strength of the

walls and the locks were considered amply sufficient to prevent escape.

Cleotos was sitting upon a stone bench, resting his head upon his right

hand. At the opening of the door he looked up. He could not see who it

was that entered, but the light tread and the faint rustle of a waving

dress sufficiently indicated the sex. If it had been daylight, a flush

might have been seen upon his face, for the thought flashed upon his

mind that it might be AEnone herself coming to his assistance. But the

first word undeceived him; and he let his head once more fall between

the palms of his hands.

'Cleotos,' whispered Leta, 'it is I. I have come to set you free.'

'It is right,' he said, moodily. 'All this I owe to you alone. It is

fit that you should try to undo your work.'

'Could I foresee that it would come to this?' she responded, attempting

justification. 'How was I to know that my trivial transgression would

have ended so sorrowfully for you? But all that is easily mended. You

have money, and a token which will identify you to the proper parties.

There is yet time to reach Ostia before that ship can sail.'

'How knew you that I had gold--or this signet ring; or that there was a

ship to sail from Ostia?' he exclaimed with sudden fierceness. 'You,

then, had been listening at the door! And having listened, you must have

known with what innocence we spoke together! And yet, seeing all this,

you called him to the spot and left him to let his eyes be deceived and

his heart filled with bitter jealousy, and have played upon his passion

by wicked misrepresentation, until you have succeeded in bringing ruin

upon all about you! I see it all now, as clearly as though it were

written upon a parchment rolled out before me! To think that the gods

have beheld you doing this thing, and yet have not stricken you dead!'

'I have sinned,' she murmured, seizing his hand and bending over, so

that a ready tear rolled down upon it. He felt it fall, but moved not.

Only a few days before, her tears would have moved him; but now his

heart was hardened against her. He had found out that her nature was

cruel and not easily moral to repentance, and that, if emotion was ever

suffered to overcome her, it was tolerated solely for some crafty

design. The falling tear, therefore, simply bade him be upon his guard

against deceit, lest once again she might succeed in weaving her wiles

about him. Or, if she really wept with repentance, he knew that it was

not repentance for the sin itself, but rather for some baffled purpose.

'Go on,' he simply said.

'I have sinned,' she repeated, still clinging to his hands. 'But, O

Cleotos! when I offer to undo my work and set you free, you will surely

forgive me?'

'Yes, it is right that you should repair the mischief you have caused,'

he repeated; 'and I will avail myself of it. To-night, since you offer

to set me free, and claim that you have the power to do so--to-night for

Ostia; and then, then away forever from this ruthless land! But stay!

What of our mistress? I will not go hence until I know that she is safe

and well.'

'She is well,' responded Leta, fearful lest the truth might throw a new

obstacle before her plans. 'And all is again right between her lord and

herself, for I have assured him of her innocence.'

'Then, since this is so, there is no motive for me to tarry,' he said.

He believed her, and was satisfied; not that he esteemed her worthy of

belief, but because it did not seem to him possible that such a matter

as a grateful kiss upon a protecting hand could require much

explanation. 'I would like well once more to see her and bid her

farewell, and utter my thanks for all her kindness; but to what purpose?

I have done that already, and could do and say no more than I have

already done and said. There remains, therefore, nothing more than to

fulfil her commands, and return to my native home. But tell her, Leta,

that my last thought was for her, and that her memory will ever live in

my heart.'

'I cannot tell her this,' slowly murmured Leta, 'for I shall not see her

again. I--I go with you.'

Cleotos listened for a moment in perplexed wonderment, and then, for his

sole answer, dropped her hand and turned away. She understood him as

well as though he had spoken the words of refusal.

'You will not take me with you, then; is it not so?' she said. 'Some

nice point of pride, or some feeling of fancied wrong, or craving for

revenge, or, perhaps, love for another person, tells you now to separate

yourself from me! And yet you loved me once. This, then, is man's

promised faith!'

'You dare to talk to me of faith and broken vows!' he exclaimed, after a

moment of speechless amazement at her hardiness in advancing such a

plea. 'You, who for weeks have treated me with scorn and

indifference--who have plotted against me, until my life itself has been

brought into danger--who, apart from all that, cast me off when first we

met in Rome, telling me then that I was and could be nothing to you,

yes, even that our association from the first had been a mistake and a

wrong! Yes, Leta, there was a time when I truly loved you, as man had

never then done, or since, or ever will again; but impute not to me the

blame that I cannot do so now.'

'I was to blame,' she said; and it seemed that this night must be a

night of confession for her, in so few things could she justify herself

by denial or argument. 'I acknowledge my fault, and how my heart has

been drawn from you by some delusion, as powerful and resistless as

though the result of magic. But when I confess it freely, and tell you

how I now see my duty and my heart more clearly, as though a veil of

after all, I find no forgiveness in your heart, said I not truly that

man's faith cannot be trusted? Am I not the same Leta as of old?'

'The same as of old?' he exclaimed. 'Can you look earnestly and

truthfully into your soul, and yet avow that you are the pure-hearted

girl who roamed hand in hand with me only a year ago, in our native

isle, content to have no ambition except that of living a humble life

with me? And now, with your simple tastes and desires swept away--with

your soul covered with love of material pleasures as with a lava

crust--wrapt up in longing for Rome's most sinful, artificial

excesses--having, for gold or position or power or ambition, or what

not, so long as it was not for love, given yourself up a willing victim

to a heartless master--do you dare, after this, to talk to me of love,

and call yourself the same?'

'And are you one of those who believe that there can be no forgiveness

for repentant woman?'

'Of forgiveness, all that can be desired; but of forgetfulness, none.

There is one thing that no man can forget; and were I to repulse the

admonitions of my judgment, and strive to pass that thing by, who would

sooner scorn me than yourself? Let all this end. Know that I love you

not, and could never love you again. Your scorn, indifference, and

deceit have long ago crushed from my heart all the love it once held.

Know further, that if I did still love you, my pride would condemn the

feeling, and I would never rest until I had destroyed it, even were it

necessary to destroy myself rather than to yield.'

'These are brave words, indeed!' she exclaimed, taunted by his rebuke

into a departure from her assumption of affection. 'But they better suit

the freeman upon his own mountain side than the slave in his cell. Samos

is still afar off. The road from here to Ostia has not yet been

traversed by you in safety. Even this door between you and the open

street has not been thrown back. And yet you dare to taunt me, knowing

that I hold in my hand the key, and, by withdrawing it, can take away

all hope from you. Do you realize what will be your fate if you remain

here--how that on the morrow the lions and leopards of the amphitheatre

will quarrel over your scattered limbs?'

'Is this a threat?' he cried. 'Is it to tell me that if I do not give my

love where my honor tells me it should not be given, I must surely die!

So, then, let it be. I accept the doom. One year ago, I would have

cheerfully fought in the arena for your faintest smile. Now I would

rather die there than have your sullied love forced upon me.'

Without another word he sat down again upon the stone bench. Even in

that darkness she could note how resolute was his expression, how firm

and unyielding his attitude. She had roused his nature, as she had never

seen it before. She had not believed that a spirit which she had been

accustomed to look upon as so much inferior in strength to her own,

could show such unflinching determination; and for the moment she stood

admiring him, and wondering whether, if he had always acted like that,

he might not have bound her soul to his own and kept her to himself

through all temptation and trial. Then, taking the other key, she

unlocked the door in the rear wall of the cell, and threw it open. The

narrow street behind the court was before him, and he was free to go.

'I meant it not for a threat,' she said. 'However low I may sink, I have

not yet reached the pass of wishing to purchase or beg for affection.

Why I spoke thus, I know not. It may be that I thought some gratitude

might be due me for rescuing you. But I cannot tell what I, thought. Or

it might have been that words were necessary for me, and that I used the

first that came. But let that pass. Know only that your safety lies

before you, and that it is in your power to grasp it. And now, farewell.

You leave me drifting upon a downward course, Cleotos. Sometimes,

perhaps, when another person is at your side, making your life far

happier than I could have made it, you will think kindly of me.'

'I think kindly of you now, Leta,' he said. 'Whatever love I can give,

apart from the love which I once asked you to accept, is yours. In

everything that brotherly affection can bestow, there will be no limit

to my care and interest for you. Nay, more, you shall now go away from

hence with me; and though I cannot promise more than a brother's love,

yet with that for your guide and protection, you can reach your native

home in peace and security, and there work out whatever repentance you

may have here begun.'

'And when we are there, and those who have known us begin to ask why,

when Cleotos has brought Leta back in safety, he regards her only as a

sister and a friend, and otherwise remains sternly apart from her, what

answer can be given which will not raise suspicion and scorn, and make

my life a burden to me? No, Cleotos, it cannot be. Cruel as my lot may

be here, I have only myself to answer for it, and it is easier to hide

myself from notice in this whirl of sin and passion than if at home

again. And whatever may henceforth happen to me, the Fates are surely

most to blame. How can one avoid his destiny?'

'The Fates do not carve out our destiny,' he said. 'They simply carry

into relentless effect the judgments which our own passions and

weaknesses pronounced upon ourselves. O Leta! have you considered what

you are resolved upon encountering? Do you not know that some day this

master of yours will tire of you, and fling you to some friend of his--a

soldier, actor, or what not--that as the years run on and your beauty

fades, you will fall lower and lower? Have not thousands like yourself

thus gone on, until at last, becoming old and worthless, they are left

to die alone upon some island in the Tiber? Pray that you may die a

better death than that!'

'It is a sad picture,' she answered. 'It is not merely possible, but

also probable. I acknowledge it all. And yet, if I saw it all unrolled

before me as my certain doom, I do not know that I would try to shun it.

Already the glitter of this world has changed my soul from what it was,

and I am now too feeble of purpose to spend long years in retrieving the

errors of the past. There came into my heart a thought--a selfish

thought--that you might forget what has gone before; and then it seemed

that I might succeed in winning back my peace, and so shun the fate

which lies before me. But you cannot forget. I blame you not: you are

right. You have never spoken more truly than when you said that I would

have despised you if you had yielded. Therefore, that hope is gone; and

now I must submit to the destiny which is coming upon me.'

'But, Leta, only strive to think that--'

'Nay, what is the use? Rather let me throw all regrets away, and strive

not to think at all. Why not yield with a pleasant grace to the current,

when we know that, in the end, struggle as we may, it will surely sweep

us under?'

'Leta--dear Leta--'

'Not a word, dear Cleotos; it must not be. From this hour I banish all

human affections from my heart, as I banish all hope. Could you remain

here, you would see how relentless and fierce my nature will grow. Plots

and schemes shall now be my amusement; for if I must be destroyed,

others shall fall with me. This must be the last tender impulse of my

life. I know not why it is, but I could now really weep. Cleotos,

forgive me! I came hither, loving you not, but hoping to beguile you

into receiving me again. I have failed, and I ought to hate you for it;

and yet I almost love you instead. It is strange, is it not?

'But, Leta--'

'How my heart now feels soft and tender with our recollections of other

days! Do you remember, Cleotos, how once, when children, we went

together and stole the grapes from Eminides's vine? And how, when he

would have beaten you, I stood before you, and prevented him? Who would

then have thought that, in a few years, we should be here in

Rome--slaves, and parting forever? We shall never again together see

Eminides's vineyard, shall we?'

'O Leta--my sister--'

'There, there; speak not, but go at once, for some one comes near. Tarry

no longer. If at home they ask after me, tell them I am dead. Farewell,

dear Cleotos. Kiss me good-by. Do not grudge me that, at least. And may

the gods bless you!'

He would still have spoken, would have claimed a minute to plead with

her and try to induce her to leave the path she was pursuing, and go

with him. But at that instant the voice of some one approaching sounded

louder, and the tones of Sergias could be distinguished as he tried to

troll forth the catch of a drinking melody. There was no time to lose.

With a farewell pressure of her arm about Cleotos's neck, Leta pushed

him through the aperture into the dark back street; and then, leaving

the keys in the locks, turned back into the garden, and fled toward the

house.

CREATION.

The primary characteristics of creation are aggregation, producing all

existing forms; and dissolution, in which the parts suffer

disintegration, their varied elements entering into new combinations.

The active powers producing such normal condition of matter, which is

ceaseless motion, are comprehended in attraction for aggregation, and

repulsion for dissolution, alternately. This power of combing atoms and

dissolving their connection is electric, which is only possessed by that

element, in its dual character of attraction and repulsion; and thus we

may reasonably assume that electricity is the material wherewith

creative energy manifests its power in the varied combinations,

dissolutions, and reconstructions which comprise all animate and

inanimate existences. This same cosmical power, electricity, holds all

worlds in their normal relations, and is the source of light and heat,

as well as the connecting link, through our electric nerve cords, by

which our minds alone commune with the outer world, in direct contact

with our bodily senses, and hence becomes the medium of all our

knowledge.

* * * * *

ELECTRICITY AS THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, HEAT, GRAVITATION, AND THE ORIGIN op

ALL GLOBES, NEBULAE, AND COMETIC MATTER.

If space were wholly devoid of matter, all globes, or other masses of

matter, would be dissipated into it, or _a priori_ could not have been

formed from it. The material interchange, passing through space, between

globes, in all stages of formation, such as light, heat, and

gravitation, could not be conducted through a vacuum, as their very

presence would be destructive of vacuity. Materiality would be

dissipated or absorbed in an attempted passage through vacuity;

therefore, as we know that light, heat, and gravitation are,

necessarily, material, space is but diffused materiality, at its minimum

of etheriality. Globes moving in their orbits and on their axes must

thus meet with resistance: this, together with the internal motion of

their contained elements, necessarily excites the constant production of

electricity, in its dual character of attraction and repulsion,

according to its well-known laws; and this double character, alone

possessed by electricity, when concentrated produces material affinity,

with reciprocal attraction and repulsion, in all its atoms, thus forever

preventing entire solidity or entire separation of its parts. Such

condensation of matter by electric action, is the origin of heat and the

variety produced by incandescence, which, therefore, accounts for the

formation of globes from the materials in space, and their sustentation

in orbit.

As motion is the normal condition of matter, and is the producer of

electricity, therefore electric actions, concentrated in space,

necessarily gathers cometic and nebulous matter from space, the

materials, through incandescence, for future globes, with orbits

contracting in proportion to condensation, its maximum of attraction. As

material space is boundless, so the creation of globes is endless

therein, through electric action, by producing gradual centres of

material condensation, the mere whirlpool specks in infinite space.

Revolving bodies, gaseous, fluid, or solid, thus impress or charge the

centres of their motion, by superinduced attraction, with electricity,

as their Leyden jars. So, too, the central body, or primary of a system,

so overcharged with electricity by its revolving secondaries, becomes

positively electrified or repellant to all such revolving bodies; and

thus the producers and accumulator are mutually attractive and repellant

of each other.

The planets, by their lightning speed in orbits and on their axes, being

producers, and the sun the recipient or accumulator of electricity; the

latter, as the centre of our revolving system, is the Leyden jar, and

thus becomes the overcharged positive source and dispenser of electric

light and heat to the surrounding planets.

The planets, as producers, are always negatively electric, tending

toward the accumulator, the sun; while the latter, as the accumulator,

being overcharged, is positively electric, and repels. The sun being the

greater body, the planets' negative electric attraction for it must

always yield to the greater mass and tend toward the sun; while that

great body, overcharged with accumulated positive electricity, is fully

capable of repelling such tendency of the lesser revolving planets

toward it. Attraction or gravitation with the planets, and repulsion

(instead of centrifugal force) with the sun, forever and inexhaustibly

retain the various bodies, of each system, in their respective orbits.

As motion is the normal condition of matter, eternally producing

electric action, and when centralized evolving light and heat; so light

and heat are as inexhaustibly eternal as motion, and may thus be

demonstrated as electric. The same principle of action applies to all

individual globes of each separate system, conjointly; and collectively,

the different systems mutually attract and repel each other,

proportionate to mass and the weakened forces of distance, thus

preserving a cosmical harmony throughout creation, forever forbidding

collision or destruction of individual globes.

This theory will be found to correspond with the well-known laws of

positive and negative electric action; as well as illustrative of the

influence of electric light on vegetable production--the only

artificially produced light, capable of imparting a healthy growth, and

color--which, I think, clearly proves it to be of the same character as

solar light. It is also corroborative of much that is inexplicable,

except in the identity of electricity with solar effulgence, as the

source of light, heat, and gravitation, as well as substituting

repulsion for centrifugal force, and must forever disprove the theory of

solar light being the result of mere metallic incandescence, or any

other equally exhausting combustion. The latter theory, with such

supposed expedients in nature, to carry out the mighty design of

creation, belittles the subject by its transitoriness, and is,

therefore, unworthy the conception of modern generations.

PHENOMENA OF HAZE, FOGS, AND CLOUDS.

The predominant haze, which generally envelops the landscape and reddens

the sun and moon during long droughts, is usually ascribed to smoke from

burning woods and forests, pervading the air. I have observed a similar

prevalent haze, connected with other extensive droughts than the one

from which the country is now (August) suffering, and have invariably

heard the same vague and inadequate cause assigned. Observation proves

conclusively, that the assigned is not the true general cause (although

it has its purely local effect), as with winds, for days together, in

opposite quarters from local fires on mountain or plain, such widespread

districts remain enveloped in haze, although hundreds of miles distant.

Neither over such districts was there any odor as from smoke pervading

the atmosphere (except temporarily from some neighboring chimneys, which

the then heavy air kept near the earth), nor felt by the eyes, which

very perceptibly smart when exposed to smoke. It is impossible, with

varying winds, that mere local fires should spread smoke so uniformly as

to comprise most of the area of the drought, which on this occasion

extended from our great western lakes to the Atlantic seacoast; and

anomalously, too, that it should have continued so long after a rain had

extinguished those fires.

I should assign a very different cause for this phenomenon. Rain drops

are negatively electric, while suspended moisture, such as fog, displays

itself in the form of vesicles or globules, distended by the presence

and prevalence of positive electricity, which refracts the rays of light

from so many myriad surfaces, that all objects are thus, necessarily,

obscured to the eye. During droughts, when haze prevails, positive

electricity in the air becomes in excess, which is heating, and

therefore serves still more to subdivide, as well as to expand or

distend the floating moisture in the atmosphere (of which it is never

entirely deprived) into infinitesimal vesicles, or globules, like minute

soap bubbles, and thus from such an infinite number of refracting

surfaces is produced the haze, as well as the obscuration of the

landscape and the reddened disks of the sun and moon, by the absorption

of their heat or red rays, so characteristic of great droughts. This

same infinitesimal vesicular condition of suspended moisture, is also

the sufficient cause of there being no deposition of dew on such

occasions, except where a local change of electric condition cools the

air, thus temporarily clearing the atmosphere, and permitting a local

deposition of the previously suspended moisture, in the form of dew.

All fogs are due to this same cause, as well as that which, in extreme

wintry cold, overhangs the open water, as it yields its comparative heat

to the air. The formation and suspension of clouds, in all their varied

characteristics, have the same origin. That highly attenuated haze which

invests the distant landscape, particularly mountains, with its magical

purple hue, is due to the same, but still more ethereal interposition of

infinitesimal globules of suspended moisture. In corroboration of this

being the true explanation of the phenomena of haze, fogs, etc., is the

fact, that as soon as clouds prevail, denoting an electric change in the

atmosphere, all haze immediately disappears, or becomes embraced in the

larger vesicles or globules, forming clouds.

FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER.

PART II.--CHEVRONS.

She sewed them on upside down. Please to remember that this was in May,

1861 (or was it 1851? it seems a long time ago), when a young lady of

the most finished education, polished to the uttermost nine, could not

reasonably be expected to know what a sergeant-major was, much less the

particular cut and fashion of his badge of rank. I told her, exultingly,

that I was appointed sergeant-major of our battalion. 'What's that?' she

inquired, simply enough. I explained. The dignity and importance of the

office was scarcely diminished in her mind by my explanation; and,

indeed, I thought it the grandest in the army. Who would be a

commissioned officer, when he could wear our gorgeous gray uniform,

trimmed with red, the sleeves wellnigh hidden behind three broad red

stripes in the shape of a V, joined at the top by as many broad red

arcs, all beautifully set off by the lithe and active figure of

Sergeant-Major William Jenkins? As for Mary, who protested that she

never could learn the difference between all these grades, or make out

the reason for them, she was for her part convinced that not even the

colonel himself, certainly not that fat Major Heavysterne, could be

grander, or handsomer, or more important than her William. So I forgave

her for sewing on my chevrons upside down, although it was at the time

an infliction grievous to be born, inasmuch as the fussy little

quartermaster-sergeant was thereby enabled to get a day's start of in

the admiration and envy of our old company. How they envied us, to be

sure! But I had one consolation: Oates' were all straight; mine were

arched. And _she_ sewed mine on. His were done by Cutts & Dunn's

bandy-legged foreman.

There never was such a uniform as ours. Not even the 'Seventh'

itself--incomparable in the eyes of the _three_-months'--could vie in

grand and soldierly simplicity, we thought, with the gray and red of the

9th Battalion, District of Columbia Volunteers. Gray cap, with a red

band round it, letters A S, for 'American Sharpshooters' (Smallweed used

to say he never saw it spelt in that way before, and to ask anxiously

for the other S), gray single-breasted frock coat, with nine gilt

buttons, and red facings on the collar and cuffs. Gray pantaloons, with

a broad red stripe down the outer seam. The drummers sported the most

gorgeous red stomachs ever seen, between two rows of twenty little

bullet buttons. The color rendered us liable to be mistaken for the

rebels, it is true; but this source of anxiety to the more nervous among

us was happily prevented from leading to any unfavorable results by the

fatherly care displayed by poor old General Balkinsop, under whose

protection, we were sent into the field, in always keeping at least a

day's march from the enemy!

When we non-commissioned staff officers were first promoted, we felt

badly about leaving our companies; wanted to drill with them still, and

so on. But this soon wore off under the pressure of new duties. For my

part, I soon found that the adjutant, Lieutenant Harch, regarded it as

quite a natural arrangement that the sergeant-major should attend to the

office duties, while the adjutant occupied himself exclusively with what

he was pleased to style the military part of the business; meaning

thereby, guard mounting every morning and Sunday morning, inspection

once a week, making an average of, say, twenty minutes work per diem for

the adjutant, and leaving the poor sergeant-major enough to occupy and

worry him for ten or eleven hours. 'Sergeant-major, publish these

orders,' Lieutenant Harch would say, in tones of authority exceeding in

peremptory curtness anything I have ever heard since from the commander

of a grand army; and then, scraping a match--my match--upon the wall, he

would begin attending to his 'military duties' by lighting a cigar--my

cigar--and strolling up the avenue, on exhibition, preparatory to going

home to dine, while the fag remained driving the pen madly, kindly

assisted sometimes by Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, until long after the

dinner hour of the non-commissioned staff. I think the company

commanders must sometimes have doubted (unless they carefully refrained

from reading orders, as I have sometimes thought probable) whether the

adjutant could write his name; for all our orders used to be signed:

'By order of Major JOHNSON HEAVYSTERNE:

FREDERICK HARCH, 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant,

By WILLIAM JENKINS, Sergeant-Major.'

Now, if the printer sets this up properly, you will see that, even at

that early day, we knew too much to adopt the sensation style of signing

orders which some officers have since learned from the _New York

Herald_, thus:

By command of

Major-General BULGER!

WASHINGTON SMITH, A. A.-G.

In those days there was but little of that distinction of ranks which

has come to be better observed now that our volunteers have grown into

an army. You see, the process of forming an army out of its constituent

element follows pretty much the fashion set by that complex machine the

human animal: the materials go through all the processes of swallowing,

digestion, chylifaction, chymifaction, absorption, alteration, and

excretion; bone, muscle, nerve, sinew, viscera, and what not, each

taking its share, and discarding the useless material that has only

served, like bran in horse feed, to give volume and _prehensibility_ to

the mass. Our non-commissioned staff messed with the major, who was as

jolly a bachelor as need be, of some forty-nine years of growth, and

thirty of butchering, that being his occupation. The adjutant, being

newly married to a gaunt female, who, I hope, nagged him as he us,

_preferred_ to take his meals at home. Smallweed, who had somehow got

made quartermaster, couldn't go old Heavysterne, he said, and so kept as

long as he could to his desultory habits of living as a citizen and a

bachelor. So our mess consisted of the major, who exercised a paternal

care over the rest of us, superintending, indeed often joining in, our

amusements and discussions, our quarrels and makings up; of

Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, who knew all about everything and

everybody better than anybody, and was always ready to ventilate his

superior knowledge on the slightest provocation, and who, as Smallweed,

now Lieutenant Smallweed, used to say, 'would have made a d----d elegant

quartermaster-sergeant, if he hadn't had a moral objection to issuing

anything;' of Chaplain Bender, a sanctified-looking individual of

promiscuous theology and doubtful morals (the funny men used to speak of

him irreverently as Hell Bender); of the battalion commissary,

Lieutenant Fippany, an unmitigated swell; of Commissary-Sergeant Peck, a

stumpy little fellow, full of facts and figures, and always quiet and

ready; of the writer, Sergeant-Major Jenkins, or Jinkens as my name used

to be mispronounced, infinitely to my disgust; and lastly,

semi-occasionally, of the sutler, Mr. Cann. The surgeon, old Doctor

Peacack, ran a separate mess, consisting of himself, the assistant

surgeon, Dr. Launcelot Cutts, and hospital steward Spatcheloe.

The drum-major, Musician Tappit, having refused to be mustered in, and

the War Department having presently refused to let us have any musicians

at all, used to appear only on parades, gorgeous in his gray uniform and

ornamental red stomach, disappearing with exemplary regularity, and

diving into his upholsterer's cap and baize apron upon the slightest

prospect of work or danger. I don't think it was ever my bad fortune to

eat more unpleasant meals than those eaten at our mess table. The

officers, excepting the major, but specially including the chaplain,

used to insist on being helped first and excessively to everything; also

on inviting their friends to dine on our plates, there being no extra

ones; also on giving us the broken chairs, one in particular, that was

cracked in a romp between the chaplain and the adjutant, and that

pinched you when you sat on it. Then Lieutenant Harch was always playing

adjutant at the dinner table, settling discussions _ex cathedra_ in a

sharp tone, and ordering his companions to help him to dishes, as thus:

'Sergeant-Major, p'tatoes!' 'Oates, beef!' 'Hurry up with those beans!'

To be monosyllabic, rude to his superiors and equals, and overbearing to

his inferiors in rank, this fledgling soldier--our comrade of a few days

since, and presently the subordinate of most of us, through standing

still while we went ahead--used to think the perfection and essence of

the military system. And then that smug-faced, smooth-tongued,

dirty-looking chaplain, with his second-hand shirt collars and slopshop

morality--was it whiskey or brandy that his breath smelt oftenest of? He

was the first chaplain I had seen, and I confess his rank breath, dirty

linen, and ranker and dirtier hypocrisy, gave me a disgust toward his

order that it took long months and many good men to obliterate.

The best part of May we spent in drilling and idling and grumbling, and

some of us, not so hard worked as Sergeant-Major Jenkins, in the true

military style of conviviality, usually terminating in an abrupt entry

in the orderly book, opposite the name of the follower of Bacchus,

'Drunk; two extra tours guard duty;' or 'Drunk again; four extra tours

knapsack drill.' Now, the knapsack drill, as practised by well-informed

and duty-loving sergeants of the guard, simply consists in requiring the

delinquent to shoulder, say, for two hours in every six, a knapsack

filled with stones, blankets, or what not, until it weighs twenty,

thirty, or perhaps forty pounds, according to the nature of the case and

the officer who orders the punishment.

Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates and I went up, one afternoon, with

Lieutenant Smallweed, Corporal Bledsoe of our old company, and two or

three others, to see the famous 'Seventh' drill, out at Camp Cameron,

which I suppose nearly everybody knows is situated about a mile and a

half north of the President's house, on the 14th-street road, and just

opposite to a one-horse affair that used to call itself 'Columbian

College,' but which, after passing through a course of weak

semi-religio-secessionism, gradually dried up, leaving its skin to the

surgeon-general for a hospital. The afternoon we selected to visit Camp

Cameron turned out to be an extra occasion. General Thomas, the

adjutant-general of the army, was to present a stand of colors to the

'Seventh' on behalf of Mr. Secretary Cameron, on behalf of some ladies,

I think. Ladies! I admire you very much, for the very many things

wherein you are most admirable, but why, oh! why, in the name of the

immortals, will you, why will you present flags? Don't do it any more,

please. They are always packed up in a box and left somewhere almost as

soon as your handkerchiefs have ceased waving, your soprano hurrahs

ceased ringing; or else they are given to some pet officer for a

coverlet. They cost a great deal of money; they oblige the poor soldiers

to endure a mort of flatulent oratory at a parade rest; and they force

the poor colonel, in a great perspiration, to stumble through a few

feeble, ineffectual, and disjointed words of thanks, which he committed

to memory last night from the original, written for him by the adjutant

or the young regimental poet, but of which he has forgotten almost every

other word. The wise old Trojan says, speaking of the horse (I get my

quotations from the newspapers, you may be sure):

'Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes;'

implying that he is opposed to going into that speculation in wooden

horseflesh, because he fears the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.

Just so, I fear the ladies, especially when they present flags. Remember

_Punch's_ advice to young persons about to be married? _'Don't!'_

The Seventh, after going through the usual evening parade, and a few

simple man[oe]uvres, formed square, facing inward, with General Thomas

and the oil-skin sausage that contained the new colors, and all the

regimental officers, in the centre. General Thomas's feeble pipes

sounded faintly enough for about half an hour, during which time no man

in the ranks heard more than a dozen words. Then Colonel Lefferts

responded in a few inaudible, but no doubt very appropriate remarks.

Then 'the boys,' seeing that the time had come, cheered lustily, after

the hypothetical manner of the rocket. But there was one thing we did

hear, standing on tiptoe, and straining every ear. The Seventh was to go

somewhere. The crisis of the war had come. The Seventh was going to

shoot at it. Their thirty days were almost out; but they were going to

be shot at, just like any of us three-months men.

To leave their canned fruits, and milk, and fresh eggs, and board

floors, and a stroll on the avenue in the afternoon, and go where glory

waited for them! Happy, happy gray-breasts! We wandered enviously round

the excited camp, and talked with our friends. Many were the rumors,

appalling to us in those days, when we were yet unused to camp 'chin.'

The regiment was to go to Harper's Ferry. Johnston was there. They would

hang him if they took him. They were to march straight to Richmond, One

man of the 'Engineer Company' was going to resign, he said, because his

company had to remain to guard the camp. They were to take two days'

rations and forty rounds of cartridges per man--_ball_ cartridges. Forty

rounds of ball cartridges and two days' work! Surely, we thought, the

days of the rebellion are numbered. And then, chewing the bitter cud of

the reflection that the war would almost certainly be ended before we

got a chance at the enemy, we wandered sadly back to our quarters,

Smallweed growling horribly all the way. Our 'headquarters' we find in a

great state of excitement. We find the orderly and Major Heavysterne

discussing the prospects of the rebels being able to hold out a month,

and Color-Sergeant Hepp and the adjutant both trying to decide the

dispute. Hepp thinks they can't do without leather, and the adjutant

thinks the want of salt must fetch them in a few weeks. Thinks? Decides!

Whatever may be doubtful, this is certain. Everybody seems strangely

excited. We tell them our news. 'Tell us some'n do'n know!' rasps

Lieutenant Harch; 'our b'ttalion's goin', too; get ready, both of,

quick! Smallweed, where in the h-- have you been? I've had to do all

your work.' We were to go at nine o'clock at night. It was then eight.

Whither? No one knew. The chaplain comes in, with symptoms of erysipelas

in his nose, and a villanous breath, to tell us, while we--the

quartermaster-sergeant and I--are packing our knapsacks and leaving

lines of farewell for those at home and at other people's homes, that

the major has imparted to him in confidence the awful secret that we are

bound for Mount Vernon, to remove the bones of Washington. This gives us

something terrible to think of as we march down, in quick time (a

suggestion of that adjutant, I know), to the Long Bridge, and during the

long delay there, spent by commanding officers in pottering about and

gesticulating. By commanding officers? There is one there who does not

potter, standing erect--that one with the little point of fire between

his fingers that marks the never-quenched cigarette--talking to Major

Heavysterne in low and earnest tones, but perfectly cool and clear the

while. That is our splendid Colonel Diamond, as brave and good a soldier

as ever drew sword, as noble and true a Christian as ever endured

persecution and showed patience. They are discussing a plan for crossing

the river in boats, landing at a causeway where the Alexandria road

crosses Four Mile Run, and so cutting off the impudent picket of the

enemy's cavalry that holds post at the Virginia end of the Long Bridge.

The battalion commanders are evidently dazzled by the brilliancy of the

moonlight and the colonel's scheme, for it soon becomes apparent that

they haven't the pluck and dash necessary to render such an operation

successful. Even we young soldiers, intent upon the awful idea of

resurrecting Washington's bones, and little dreaming then of becoming

the pioneers of the great invasion, could see the hitch. Presently the

major got a definite order, and beckoning to us of the battalion staff,

began to cross the bridge. Dusky bodies of troops, their arms glistening

in the moonlight, had been silently gliding past us while the discussion

progressed. Most of them seemed to have halted on the bridge, we found

as we passed on, and to have squatted down in the shade of the parapet,

gassing, smoking, or napping. It was nearly midnight. We had got to the

middle of the causeway, and found ourselves alone, bathed in silence and

moonlight and wonder, when up dashed a horseman from the direction of

the Virginia side. He stopped, and peered at us over his horse's neck.

'O'Malley, is that you?' says the major, seeing it is an Irish officer

belonging to Colonel Diamond's staff. 'Yes,' says the captain, 'and who

the devil are you?' 'Major Heavysterne. Won't you please ride back and

send my battalion forward? You'll find the boys standing on the draw.

Cap'n Bopp, of the Fisler Guards, is the senior officer, I believe.' But

the Irishman was off, with an oath at the major's stupidity in

forgetting to order his men forward. Presently the battalion came

creeping up, silently enough, I thought, but the adjutant made the

excuse of a casual 'ouch' from a man on whose heels Hrsthzschnoffski

had casually trodden, to shriek out his favorite 'Stop 'at talken'!' 'Do

you command this battalion?' asks Captain Pipes, sternly; and

straightway there would have been a dire altercation, but for the

major's gentle interference. The bridge began to sway and roar under our

steps. We were on the draw. Clinging to the theory of Washington's

bones, I peered over the draw, in the hope of seeing a steamer; there

was nothing there but the sop and swish of the tide. Perhaps we were not

going to Mount Vernon at all! 'Halt! Who are these sleeping beauties on

the draw? Ah! these are the Bulgers. 'Say, Bulger,' I ask of one of

them, 'who's ahead of you?' 'A'n't nobody,' he replied indignantly, as

who should say, Who _can_ be ahead of the invincible Bulger Guards.

Nobody! Here was great news. ''_Orr'd_ H'RCH!' drones the major, in low

tones; and '_Owa_'' H'MP,' sharply, ''_Orrrr_ 'RRRCH,' gruffly, repeat

the captains. On we go, breaking step to save the bridge, surprise and

fluttering in our hearts. A'n't nobody ahead! Now we are on the hard

dirt, the sacred soil, of the pewter State, mother of Presidents, the

birthplace of Washington, the feeding ground of hams, but otherwise the

very nursery and hive of worthlessness, humbug, sham, and superstition.

Virginia, that might have been the first, and proudest, and most

enlightened State in the Union, that is the last and most besodden State

in or half out of it--But while my apostrophe runs on, the bit between

its teeth, the head of our little column muffles its tread on the sacred

soil itself, dirtying its boots in the sacred mud, the roar of the

bridge ceases, the last files and the sergeant-major run after them to

close up, in obedience to the sharp mandate of the major, and the

invasion is begun. No man spoke a word; no sound was audible save the

distant hum and cracking of the city, the cry of a thousand frogs, and

the muffled tramp of our advancing footsteps. I thought the enemy, if

any were near, must surely hear the cartridges rattle in my cartridge

box as we double-quicked to close up, and I put my hand behind me to

stop the clatter. If any enemy were near, indeed! There seemed an enemy

behind every bush, a rebel in every corner of the worm fence. I am in

the rear of the column, I thought, and my heart went thump, bump, and my

great central nervous ganglion ached amain. 'Sergeant-major,' whispers

Major Heavysterne; 'Sergeant-major,' barks the adjutant. 'Fall out four

files and keep off to the right, and about fifty paces in advance of the

battalion, and examine the ground thoroughly. Report any signs of the

enemy.' The ache grew bigger, and I perspired terribly as I inquired, in

tones whose tremor I hoped would be mistaken for ardor, whether any one

was ahead of us. 'No one except the enemy,' laughed the major, quietly.

No one except the enemy! Fifty paces from any one except the enemy, by

my legs, each pace a yard! 'The ground to the right is all water, and

about seven feet deep,' I reported joyfully, having ascertained the

fact. 'Then go fifty yards ahead, as far to the right as you can get,

and keep out of sight,' were our new orders. I thought we would keep out

of sight well enough! We were going up hill--up the hill on which Fort

Runyon now stands. Here is a shanty. What if it should be full of the

enemy, and we but four poor frightened men, with our battalion hidden by

the turn in the road. Mechanically I cocked my rifle and opened the

door, and strained my eyes into the darkness. Nobody. I let down the

hammer again.

Fear had oozed out of my fingers' ends, in lifting the latch, just as

valor did from those of Bob Acres, and Jenkins was himself again. We

jobbed our bayonets under the lager-beer counter, to provide for the

case of any lurking foe in that quarter. Just here the road forked.

Sending two of us to the right, the rest kept on the Alexandria. 'Look

there,' chatters Todd second between his teeth, wafting in my face a

mingled odor of fear and gin cocktails. 'Where?' 'Why there! on top of

the hill--a horse.' 'Is that a horse?' 'Yes.' 'A man on him, too!' 'Two

of 'em!' Click, click, click, from our locks. We creep on and up

stealthily. We are scarcely thirty yards distant from the two horsemen,

when a man darts out from the left-hand side of the road behind us--two

men--three! We are surrounded. Todd second would have fired, but I held

him back. '_Who's that?_' I whispered; '_speak quick, or I fire!_'

'Can't you see, you d--d fool,' barks out our surly adjutant, who,

unknown to us, had been leading a similar scout on the opposite side of

the road. Click, click, from up the hill. The enemy are going to shoot.

An awful moment. We steady our rifles and our nerves; all trace of fear

is gone; nothing remains but eagerness for the conflict that seems so

near, and with a bound, without waiting for orders, we move quickly up

the hill. Lieutenant Harch moves his men out into the road, where the

bright moonlight betrays, perhaps multiplies, their number; the horsemen

spring to their saddles, and are off at a clattering gallop, to alarm

Alexandria. 'Don't shoot!' shrieks the adjutant; our rifles waver; the

hill hides the flying picket; the chance is lost; presently all

Alexandria will be awake, and a beautiful surprise frustrated. As we

peer into the moonlit distance from the top of the hill now almost

spaded away and trimmed up into Fort Runyon, feeling the solemnity of

the occasion impressed upon us with dramatic force by all the

surroundings--by our loneliness, by our character as the harbingers of

the advance of the armies of American freedom and American nationality,

and by the recent flight of the first squad of the enemy whom we had met

with hostile purpose: as we dreamily drink in all these and many other

vague ideas, up comes our battalion, and occupies the hill, the major

sending off a company to hold the bridge where the road crosses the

canal and forks to Arlington and Fairfax Court House. Presently there

pass by us regiments from Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and it may be

from other States which I forget. Some turn off to the right, to settle

on the hill which is now scooped into Fort Albany; others press forward

to Alexandria, the bells of which town very soon begin to ring a

frightened peal of alarm and confusion. We move out a half mile farther

and halt, our night's work being over, and other things in store; the

moonlight wanes, and grows insensibly into a chilly daylight, presently

reddened by the sun of to-morrow. All this seems to us to have occupied

scarcely half an hour, but it is broad day again for certain, and surely

we are a mortally tired and aching battalion as we march back listless,

hot, sleepy, and gastric, over the Long Bridge, to our armory, there to

fall asleep over breakfast in sheer exhaustion, and to spend the

remainder of the day in a dry, hard series of naps, not the least

refreshing--such as leave you the impression of having slept in hot

sand. As we--the quartermaster-sergeant and I--stroll down the avenue

that afternoon according to our wont, we hear the news of Ellsworth's

death, of the occupation of Alexandria by our forces, and of the flight

of the enemy's handful of silly, braggadocio Virginia militia, hastily

collected to brag and drink the town safe from the pollution of the vile

Yankee's invading foot. Ah! V'ginia; as thou art easily pleased to sing

of thy sister-in-law, Ma'yland,

'The taaeirahnt's foot is awn thai sho','

and will be likely to remain thar a right tollable peert length of time,

I expect.

Nothing but bridge guarding in the festering swamp on the Virginia side

of the Potomac, varied by multiplying details for extra duty as clerks

in all imaginable offices, falls to our lot until the 10th of June,

when, after a number of rumors, and many dark forebodings as to what the

District men would do, we are finally ordered into the field as a part

of the Chickfield expedition, originally designed for the capture of

Dregsville, I believe; an object which may have been slightly interfered

with by its detailed announcement about a week beforehand in one of the

Philadelphia papers. The expedition consisted of the First, Third,

Fifth, and Ninth Battalions of District of Columbia Volunteers, the

First New Hampshire, the Ninth New York, and the Seventeenth

Pennsylvania, which _would_ call itself the First. I think four other

regiments from the same State did the same thing, it being a cardinal

principle with them, perhaps, that each regiment was to claim two

different names and three different numbers, and that at least four

other regiments were fiercely to dispute with it each name and each

number: for example, there was the

First Pennsylvania Artillery, }

calling itself the... }

}

First Pennsylvania Militia, Infantry, } First

calling itself the... } Pennsylvania

} Regiment.

First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry,}

calling itself the... }

}

First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry,}

calling itself, and called by }

the Governor, the... }

And for another example there was a regiment which called itself the

'Swishtail Carbines,' after a beastly ornament in the hats of its men;

the 'Shine Musketoons,' after their lieutenant-colonel; the '289th

Pennsylvania Volunteers,' after the State series of numbers, which began

with 280 or thereabout; and the 'First Regiment of the Pennsylvania

Volunteer Reserve Corps, Breech-Loading Carbineers,' and doubtless by

other names, though I don't remember them.

Besides this tremendous host--we had never seen so large a force

together, and thought it the most invincible of armadas--we had a

battery of artillery, composed of three or four different kinds of guns,

as the fashion was in the good old days of our company posts, wherefrom

we were just emerging in a chrysalis state, and also two companies of

cavalry; one a real live company of regulars, commanded by Captain

Cautle, of the Third Dragoons, the other led by Captain (he called

himself major, and his company a battalion) Cutts, formerly and since an

enterprising member of the firm of Cutts & Dunn, who made my uniform,

and who will make your clothes, if you wish, my dear reader, and charge

you rather less than three times their value, after the manner of

Washington tailors; which charge will appear especially moderate when

you remember that the clothes will almost fit, and won't wear out so

very soon after all, as is the way with Washington clothes. Indeed, as

the tactics say, 'this remark is general for all the deployments;' and

the same may as well be said of all bills and things made in the great

city of sheds, contractors, politicians, dust, and unfinished buildings.

But is this a description of Washington? We are at Chickfield, where the

loyal Maryland farmers come to us to protect their loyalty, to charge a

dollar a panel for old worm fences thrown down by 'the boys,' to sell

forage at double prices, to reclaim runaway negroes, and to assure us of

the impossibility of subjugating the South. And here, in the peaceful

village of Chickfield, the object of our expedition having been happily

frustrated by the newspapers, we enjoy our ease for a week or ten days,

and our first camp experiences. Oh! that first experience of unboxing

tents smelling loudly as of candle grease, of finding the right poles,

of vainly endeavoring to pitch them straight, of hot and excited

officers rushing hither and thither in a flurry, trying to instruct the

different squads in their work, and straightway frustrated by the thick

heads, or worse, by the inevitable suggestions of those remarkably

intelligent corporals, who seem to consider themselves as having a

special mission direct from heaven to know everything except how to do

what they are bid. And oh! the first camp cookery, when everything is

overdone except what is underdone; when the soup is water, and the

coffee grounds, and the tea (we had tea in the _three_-months!) senna!

And after a day of worry, hurry, confusion, and awful cooking, the first

rough sleep, with a root running across your ribs, and a sizable gravel

indenting the small of your back! How the teamsters talk all night, and

the sentinels call wildly, incessantly, for the corporal of the guard!

How you dream of being hung on a wire, as if to dry, with your head on a

jagged rock; of an army of sentinels pacing your breast, ceaselessly

engaged in coming to an 'order arms;' of millions of ants crawling over

and through you; of having your legs suddenly thrust into an icehouse,

and a brush fire built under your head; of black darkness, in which you

fall down, down, down, down--faster, faster, faster!--till crash! you

bump against something, and split wide open with a thundering roar,

which gradually expands into the sound of a bugle as you awake to

renewed misery, and are, as Mr. Sawin says, 'once more routed out of bed

by that derned reveille.'

Presently there comes an order for us to march to Billsburg, and there

join the army of the Musconetcong, commanded by that dauntless hero,

Major-General Robert Balkinsop. Of course we march in a hurry, as much

as possible by night, 'without baggage,' as the orders say--meaning with

only _two_ wagons to a company. The other battalions of D.C. Vols. stay

behind and loaf back to Washington, there to be mislaid by Major-General

Blankhed, who is so preoccupied with issuing and affixing his sign

manual to passes for milk, eggs, and secessionists, to cross and recross

Long Bridge, that the war must wait for him or go ahead without him. We

go on to glory, as we suppose (deluded _three_-months!), and march

excitedly, with all our legs, fearing we shall be too late. As we near

Billsburg, we can hear the since familiar _tick--tack_, _pip--pop--pop_

of a rattling skirmish, and the _vroom--vroom_ of volley firing.

Anxiously, eagerly--no need for the colonel to cry 'Step out

lively!'--we press forward, with all the ardor of recruits. Recruits!

Hadn't we been a month in service, and been through one great invasion

already? There they are! See the smoke? Where? On top of that hill!

Halt! Our battalion deploys as skirmishers with a useless cheer. We

close up. We load with ball cartridge, and most of us, on our individual

responsibility, fix bayonets; it looks so determined--nothing like the

cold steel, we think. Slowly, resolutely, we advance. An aid comes

galloping back. We crowd round him. The colonel looks disgustedly

handsome. What does he say? Pshaw! It's only the 284th Pennsylvania,

part of General Balkinsop's body guard, discharging muskets after rain.

Only three soldiers, a negro, a couple of mules, and an old woman, have

been hurt so far, and 'the boys' will be through in an hour or so more!

Well, as we were sent for in a hurry, of course we waited a week. How

General Balkinsop man[oe]uvred the great army of the Musconetcong; what

fatherly, nay, grandmotherly care he took to keep us out of danger; how

cautiously he spread, his nets for the enemy, and how rapidly he left

them miles behind; how we killed nothing but chickens, wounded nothing

but our own silly pride, and captured nothing but green apples and

roasting ears; all this, and more, let history tell. The poor old

general kept us safe, at all events; and if the enemy, with half our

numbers, was left unharmed, and allowed quietly and leisurely to move

off and swell his force elsewhere, and so whip us in detail, what of it?

Didn't we save our wagon train? And isn't that, as everyone knows, the

highest result of strategy?

And then came the battle (the _battle!_) of Bull Run, with its first

glowing, crowing accounts of victory, and its later story of humiliation

and shame! Ah! let me shut up the page! My heart grows sick over this

mangy, scrofulous period of our national disease; give me air!

Luckily for me, I had a raging fever just after that awful 21st of July,

1861. When I awoke from my delirium, and had got as far as tea, toast,

and the door of the hospital, they told me of the great uprising of the

people, of General McClellan's appointment to command the Army of the

Potomac, of how 'our boys' had reenlisted for the war, and of how I, no

longer Sergeant-Major William Jenkins, was to be adjutant of the

regiment, and might now take off my _chevrons_, and put on my SHOULDER

STRAPS.

_She_ sent them to me in a letter. Wait a month, and I'll tell you.

THE FIRST FANATIC.

When Noah hewed the timber

Wherewith to build the ark,

Outside the woods one shouted--

'That wild fanatic!--_hark!_'

And when he drew the beams

And laid them on the plain,

One said,'He has no balance,

He surely is insane.'

And when he raised the frame,

One clear, sunshiny day,

'Poor fool of _one idea_,'

A smiling man did say.

When he foretold the flood,

And stood repentance teaching,

They sneered, 'You radical,

We'll hear no ultra preaching!'

And when he drove the beasts and birds

Into the ark one morn,

They shouted, 'Odd enthusiast!'

And laughed with ringing scorn.

When he and all his house went in,

They gazed, and said, 'Erratic!'

'A pleasant voyage to you, Noah!

You canting, queer fanatic!'

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

V.--THE ADIRONDACS.

This interesting mountain region embraces the triangular plateau lying

between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario and the

Mohawk. The name was formerly restricted to the central group containing

the highest peaks, but is now applied to the various ranges traversing

the northeastern counties of the State of New York. The loftiest points

are found in the County of Essex and the neighboring corners of

Franklin; but the surfaces of Clinton, St. Lawrence, Herkimer, Hamilton,

Warren, and Washington are all diversified by the various branches of

the same mountain system. The principal ranges have a general

northeasterly and southwesterly direction, and are about six in number.

They run nearly parallel with one another, and with the watercourses

flowing into Lake Champlain, namely, Lake George and Putnam's Creek, the

Boquet, Au Sable, and Saranac Rivers. Recent surveys made by, or under

the direction of, Professor A. Guyot, will doubtless furnish us with

more accurate information regarding ranges and measurements of heights

than any we can now refer to. So far as we have been able to learn from

the best authorities within our reach,[2] the situation and names of the

most prominent ranges are as follows: The most southerly is that known

as the Palmertown or Luzerne Mountains, and embraces the highlands of

Lake George, terminating at Mount Defiance, on Lake Champlain. This

range has also been called Black Mountain range and Tongue Mountains.

The second range, the Kayaderosseras, ends in the high cliff overlooking

Bulwagga Bay. The third, or Schroon range, terminates on Lake Champlain

in the high promontory of Split Rock. It borders Schroon Lake, and its

highest peak is Mount Pharaoh, nearly 4,000 feet above tidewater. The

fourth, or Boquet range, finds its terminus at Perou Bay, and contains

Dix Peak (5,200 feet), Nipple Top (4,900 feet), Raven Hill, and Mount

Discovery. The fifth or Adirondac range (known also as Clinton or Au

Sable) meets Lake Champlain in the rocks of Trembleau Point, and

embraces the highest peaks of the system, namely, Mount Tahawus (Marcy),

5,379 feet, and Mounts Mc-Intire, McMartin, and San-da-no-na, all above

5,000 feet in elevation. The series nest succeeding on the northwest,

does not consist of a single distinguishable range, but of a

continuation of groups which may be considered as a sixth range, under

the name of Chateaugay or Au Sable. Its highest points are Mount Seward

(5,100 feet), and Whiteface, nearly 5,000 feet in height. We have also

seen noticed as distinguishable a ridge still exterior to the last

mentioned, as Chateaugay, _i.e._, the range of the St. Lawrence.

[Footnote 2: NEW YORK SATE GAZETTEER.]

The above-named ranges are not always clearly defined, as cross spurs or

single mountains sometimes occupy the entire space between two ridges,

reducing the customary valley to a mere ravine. The usual uncertainty

and redundancy of nomenclature common to mountain regions, adds to the

difficulty of obtaining or conveying clear ideas of the local

distribution of elevation and depression. On the northern slope, the

three rivers, Boquet, Au Sable (with two branches, East and West), and

Saranac, furnish to the traveller excellent guides for the arrangement

of his conceptions, regarding the general face of the country. To the

south, the same office is performed by the various branching headwaters

of the Hudson.

These mountains are granitic, and the river bottoms have a light, sandy

soil. The Au Sable well deserves its name, not only from the bar at its

mouth, but also from the sand fields through which it chiefly flows.

Steep, bare peaks, wild ravines, and stupendous precipices characterize

the loftier ranges. The waterfalls are numerous and beautiful, and the

lakes lovely beyond description. More than one hundred in number, they

cluster round the higher groups of peaks, strings of glittering gems

about the stately forms of these proud, dark-browed, Indian

beauties--mirrors wherein they may gaze upon the softened outlines of

their haughty heads, their wind-tossed raiment of spruce fir, pines, and

birch.

In the lowest valleys the oak and chestnut are abundant, but as we leave

the shores of Lake Champlain and ascend toward the west, the beech and

basswood, butternut, elm, ash, and maple, hemlock and arbor vitae,

tamarack, white, black, and yellow pines, white and black birch,

gradually disappear, until finally the forest growth of the higher

portions of the loftier summits is composed almost exclusively of the

various species of spruce or fir. The tamarack sometimes covers vast

plains, and, with the long moss waving from its sombre branches, looks

melancholy enough to be fancied a mourner over the ring of the axe

felling noble pines, the crack of the rifle threatening extermination to

the deer once so numerous, or the cautious tread of the fisherman under

whose wasteful rapacity the trout are gradually disappearing. We have

reason to be thankful that all are not yet gone--that some splendid

specimens are left to tell the glorious tale of the primeval forest,

that on the more secluded lake shores an occasional deer may yet be seen

coming down to drink, and that in the shadier pools the wary and

sagacious prince of fishes still disports himself and cleaves the

crystal water with his jewelled wedge.

Berries of all sorts spring up on the cleared spots; the wide-spreading

juniper, with its great prickly disks, covers the barer slopes; the

willow herb, wild rose, clematis, violet, golden rod, aster, immortelle,

arbutus, harebell, orchis, linnaea borealis, mitchella, dalibarda,

wintergreen, ferns innumerable, and four species of running pine, all in

due season, deck the waysides and forest depths.

The climate is intensely cold in winter, and in the summer cool upon the

heights, but in the narrow sandy valleys the long days of June, July,

and August are sometimes uncomfortably hot. The nights, however, are

ordinarily cool. Going west through the middle of the region, from

Westport to Saranac, a difference of several weeks in the progress of

vegetation is perceptible. Long after the linnaea had ceased to bloom at

Elizabethtown, we found its tender, fragrant, pink bells flushing a

wooded bank near Lake Placid. Good grass grows upon the hillsides, and

in the valleys are found excellent potatoes, oats, peas, beans, and

buckwheat. The corn is small, but seems prolific, and occasional fields

of flax, rye, barley, and even wheat, present a flourishing appearance.

Lumber, charcoal, and iron ore of an excellent quality are, however, the

present staples of this mountain region. Bears and panthers are found in

some secluded localities, and the farmer still dreads the latter for his

sheep. The wolves are said to kill more deer than the hunters. The otter

and beaver are found among the watercourses, and the mink or sable is

still the prey of the trapper. The horses are ordinarily of a small

breed, but very strong and enduring.

The men are chiefly of the Vermont type, most of the original settlers

having come from the neighboring State. The school house, court house,

church, and town hall are hence regarded as among the necessary

elements of life to the well-ordered citizen. Honest dealing, thrift,

and cleanliness are the rule, and the farm houses are comfortable and

well cared for. The men look intelligent, and the women are handsome,

although, indeed, too many pale or sallow complexions give evidence of

sedentary habits, and of the almost universal use of _saleratus_ and hot

bread [??]. The families of many farmers far in among the mountains

rarely taste fresh meat, but subsist chiefly upon salt pork, fish, fresh

or salted, as the season will permit, potatoes, wheat, rye, and Indian

meal, with berries, dried apples, perhaps a few garden vegetables,

plenty of good milk, and excellent butter. Eggs, chickens, and veal are

luxuries occasionally to be enjoyed, and, should one of the family be a

good shot, venison and partridge may appear upon the bill of fare.

Bright flowers ornament the gardens, and gay creepers embower doors and

windows. Along the more secluded roads are the log cabins of the

charcoal burners, said cabins containing, if apparently nothing else,

two or three healthy, chubby, pretty children, and a substantial cooking

stove, of elaborate pattern, recently patented by some enterprising

compatriot.

Among the most remarkable features of these mountains are the 'Passes,'

answering to Gaps, Notches, and Cloves in other parts of the Union. They

afford means for excellent roads from end to end of the mountain region,

and are, in addition, eminently picturesque. The two most noteworthy are

the Indian and Wilmington Passes; the first too rugged for the present

to admit of a road; and the latter containing the beautiful Wilmington

Fall. Many of the mountains have been burned over, and the bare,

gaunt-limbed timber, and contorted folds of gray, glittering rock,

afford a spectral contrast to the gentler contours of hills still clad

in their natural verdure, bright or dark as deciduous or evergreen trees

preponderate. The variety of form is endless; long ridges, high peaks,

sharp or blunt, sudden clefts, great bare slides, flowing curves, convex

or concave, serrated slopes crowned with dark spruce or jagged as the

naked vertebrae of some enormous antediluvian monster, stimulate the

curiosity and excite the imagination of the beholder. There is an

essential difference in the character of the views obtained, whether

looking from the south, or the east. In the former case, the eye,

following the axes of the ranges, sees the mountains as a cross ridge of

elevated peaks; and in the latter, where the sight strikes the ranges

perpendicularly to their axes, one, or, at most, two ridges are all that

can be seen from any single point.

This region may be approached from Lake Champlain by way of Ticonderoga,

Crown Point, Port Henry, Westport, and Port Kent, the two latter places

being the nearer to the higher peaks; or from the lake country in

Hamilton County, by way of Racket and Long Lakes.

* * * * *

The night boat for Albany, June 27th, 1864, was crowded with passengers

fleeing from pavements, summer heats, and stifling city air, to green

fields, cool shadows of wooded glens, or life-giving breezes from

mountain heights. True, there were some who, like Aunt Sarah Grundy,

bitterly lamented the ample rooms and choice fare of their own

establishments, and whose idea of a 'summer in the country' was limited

to a couple of months at Saratoga or Newport, with a fresh toilette for

each succeeding day; but even these knew that there were at both places

green trees, limpid waters, whether of lake or ocean, and a wide horizon

wherein to see sunsets, moonrises, and starlight. Aunt Sarah went to

Newport; she found there fewer of such persons as she was pleased to

designate as 'rabble,' and the soft, warm fogs were exactly the summer

atmosphere for a complexion too delicate to be exposed to the fervent

blaze of a July sun.

But the majority were not of Aunt Sarah's stamp. They were men, wearied

with nine months' steady work, eager for country sports, for the freedom

of God's own workhouse, where labor and bad air and cramped positions

need not be synonymous; or women, glad to escape the routine of

housekeeping, the daily contest with Bridget or Katrine, with Jean,

Williams, or Priscilla. There were young girls, with round hats and

thick boots, anxious to substitute grassy lanes or rocky hillsides for

the flagstones of avenues; lads, to whom climbing of fruit trees and

rowing boats were pleasant reminiscences of some foregone year; and

finally, children, who longed for change, and whose little frames needed

all the oxygen and exercise their anxious parents could procure for

them.

Such, doubtless, was a large portion of the precious freight of our

'floating palace,' whose magnificence proved to us rather of the

Dead-Sea-apple sort, as we had arrived upon the scene of action too late

to procure comfortable quarters for the night, and, in addition, soon

after daybreak found ourselves aground within sight of Albany, and with

no prospect of release until after the departure of the train for

Whitehall. At a few moments past seven, we heard the final whistle, and

knew that our journey's end was now postponed some four and twenty

hours. We afterward learned that by taking the boat to Troy we would

have run less risk of delay, as the Whitehall and Rutland train usually

awaits the arrival of said boat. At nine o'clock we reached Albany, and

one of our number spent a dreary day, battling with headache and the

ennui of a little four year old, who could extract no amusement from the

unsuggestive walls of a hotel parlor. About five in the afternoon we

left for Whitehall, where we purposed passing the night. This movement

did not one whit expedite the completion of our journey, but offered a

change of place, and an additional hour of rest in the morning, as the

lake-boat train from Whitehall was the same that left Albany shortly

after seven.

We found Whitehall a homely little town, in a picturesque situation, on

the side of a steep hill, past which winds the canal, and under which

thundered the train that on the following morning bore us to the lake,

where the pleasant steamboat 'United States' awaited her daily cargo.

The upper portion of Lake Champlain is very narrow, and the channel

devious; the shores are sometimes marshy, sometimes rocky, and the

bordering hills have softly swelling outlines. Our day was hazy, and the

Green Mountains of Vermont seemed floating in some species of celestial

atmosphere suddenly descended upon that fair State. We passed the

Narrows (a singular, rocky cleft, through which flows the lake), and

soon after came to Ticonderoga, with its ruined fort and environing

hills.

After leaving Crown Point, the lake becomes much wider, and at Port

Henry spreads out into a noble expanse of water. Behind Port Henry, the

Adirondac peaks already begin to form a towering background. Westport,

however, has a still more beautiful situation. The lake there is very

broad, the sloping shores are wooded, the highest peaks of the Green

Mountains are visible to the east and northeast, and the Adirondacs

rise, tier after tier, toward the west.

On the boat were wounded soldiers going to their homes. Poor fellows!

They had left their ploughs and their native hills, to find wounds and

fevers in Virginia. When one looked upon the tranquil lake and

halo-crowned mountains, it seemed almost impossible that the passions of

evil men should have power to draw even that placid region into the

vortex, and hurl back its denizens scarred and scathed, to suffer amid

its beauty. And yet were these men the very marrow and kernel of the

landscape, the defenders of the soil, the patriots who were willing to

give themselves that their country might remain one and undivided, that

the 'home of the brave' might indeed be the 'land of the free.'

At Westport we left the boat, and found the stage to Elizabethtown, a

_buckboard_, already crowded with passengers. An inn close at hand

furnished us the only covered wagon we chanced to see during our ten

weeks' sojourn among the Adirondacs. The drive to Elizabethtown (eight

miles) was hot and dusty, for we faced the western sun, and the long

summer drought was just then commencing to make itself felt.

Nevertheless, there was beauty enough by the wayside to make one forget

such minor physical annoyances. As the road rose over the first hills,

the views back, over the lake and toward those hazy, dreamy-looking

Vermont mountains, seemed a leaf from some ancient romance, wherein

faultless knights errant sought peerless lady loves with golden locks

flowing to their tiny feet, and the dragons were all on the outside,

dwellers in dark caverns and noisome dens. In our day, I fear, we have

not improved the matter, for the dark caverns seem to have passed

within, and the dragons have been adopted as familiars.

By and by, on some arid spots, appeared the low, spreading juniper,

which we had previously known only as the garden pet of an enthusiastic

tree fancier. And thus, perhaps, the virtues which here we cultivate by

unceasing care and watchfulness, will, when we are translated to some

wider sphere, nearer to the Creator of all, burst upon us as simple,

natural gifts to the higher and freer intelligences native to that

sphere.

Raven Hill is the highest point between Westport and Elizabethtown. It

is a beautifully formed conical hill, rising some twenty-one hundred

feet above the sea level, and contributing the cliffs on the northern

side of the 'Pass,' through which leads the road into the valley of the

Boquet, that vale known formerly as the 'The Pleasant Valley,' in which

was Betseytown, now dignified into Elizabethtown. Does an increase in

civilization and refinement indeed destroy familiarity, render us more

strange one to another, even, through much complexity, to our own

selves? The southern side of the Pass is formed by the slope of the

'Green Mountain,' once so called from its beautiful verdure, now, alas!

burnt over, bristling with dead trees and bare rocks, and green only by

reason of weeds, brambles, and a bushy growth of saplings. The view,

descending from the summit of the Pass into the Pleasant Valley, is

charming. The Boquet runs through green meadows and cultivated fields,

while round it rise lofty mountains--the 'Giant of the Valley' (alias

'Great Dome' or 'Bald Peak'), being especially remarkable, with its

summits, green or bare, round or peaked, glittering with white scars of

ancient slides. To the west lies the Keene Pass, a steep, rocky gateway

to the Au Sable River and the wonders beyond. This view of the descent

into the Pleasant Valley is even more striking from a road passing over

the hills some five miles south of Elizabethtown. The vale is narrower,

the point of view higher, and the opposite mountains nearer and more

lofty. The Giant of the Valley rises directly in the west, and Dix's

Peak closes the vista to the south. On a semi-hazy afternoon, with the

sunlight streaming through in broad pathways of quivering glory, it

would be difficult to imagine a more enchanting scene.

There are in Elizabethtown two inns,[3] one down by the stream, a branch

of the Boquet, and the other up on the 'Plain,' near the court house.

The latter has decidedly the advantage in situation. Both are owned by

the same landlord, and are well kept. We arrived in the midst of court

week, and found every place filled with lawyers, clients, witnesses, and

even, behind the bars of the brick jail, we could see the prisoners,

more fortunate than their city compeers, in that they breathed pure air,

and could look out upon the everlasting hills, solemn preachers of the

might and the rights, as well as the mercy of their Creator.

[Footnote 3: During the past season, the Mansion House, on the Plain,

was not opened until near the close Of the summer. We understand it is

to be henceforth a permanent 'institution.']

From two to three miles from the Valley House is the top of Raven Hill,

seemingly a watchtower on the outskirts of the citadel of the

Adirondacs. The ascent is easy, and the view panoramic, embracing Lake

Champlain and the Green Mountains, Burlington and Westport, the bare,

craggy hills to the north, the higher ranges to the west, with the

abrupt precipices of the 'Keene Pass' and the lofty 'Dome' and 'Bald

Mountain,' Dix's Peak to the south, a clear lake known as 'Black Pond'

among the hills toward Moriah, and at the base the Pleasant Valley with

the winding Boquet River.

Near the lower hotel is Wood Mountain, about half as high as Raven Hill,

and offering a view somewhat similar, although of course not so

extended. The distance to the top is but little over a mile, and the

pathway, although somewhat steep, is very good.

A visit to the iron mines and works at Moriah can readily be made from

Elizabethtown. The distance is from twelve to fourteen miles. One of the

mines is quite picturesque, being cut into the solid rock, under a roof

supported by great columns of the valuable ore. The workmen, with their

picks and barrows, passing to and fro, as seen from the top of the

excavation, look like German pictures of tiny gnomes and elves delving

for precious minerals. The yield from the ore is about eighty per cent.,

and of very superior quality. The return road passes down the hill,

whence is the splendid view of the 'Valley' before mentioned.

A delightful excursion can also be made to 'Split Rock,' about nine

miles up the valley of the Boquet. The little river there, in two

separate falls, makes its way through a rocky cleft. The basins of the

upper, and the singularly winding chasm of the lower fall, are

especially worthy of observation. At Split Rock we first made any

extensive acquaintance with a costume which threatens to be immensely

popular among the Adirondacs, namely, the _Bloomer_, and in the agility

displayed by some of its fair wearers we beheld the results likely to

spring from its adoption as a mountain walking dress. Our private

observation was, that moderately full, short skirts, without hoop of

course, terminating a little distance above the ankle, and worn with

clocked or striped woollen stockings, were more graceful than a somewhat

shorter and scantier skirt, with the pantalette extending down to the

foot. The former seems really _a la paysanne_, while the latter, in

addition to some want of grace, suggests _Bloomer_, and the many

absurdities which have been connected with that name. It is a great pity

that a sensible and healthful change in walking attire should have been

caricatured by its own advocates, and thus rendered too conspicuous to

be agreeable to many who would otherwise have adopted it in some

modified and reasonable form.

Near New Russia, about five miles from Elizabethtown, is a brook

flowing among moss-covered stones and rocks, overhung by giant trees of

the original forest; and just out of Elizabethtown is a glen, through

which pours a pretty stream, making pleasant little cascades under the

shadow of a less aged wood, and within a bordering of beautiful ferns,

running pines, and bright forest blossoms. We should also not neglect to

mention Cobble Hill, a bold pile of rocks, rising directly out of the

plain on which a portion of the town is situated.

But we had heard of the 'Walled Rocks of the Au Sable,' and Elsie and I

could not rest until our own eyes had witnessed that they were worthy of

their reputation. We left Elizabethtown at half past six in the morning,

our team a fast pair of ponies, belonging to our landlord. The previous

days had been warm and obstinately hazy, but for that especial occasion

the atmosphere cooled and cleared, and lent us some fine views back

toward the Giant of the Valley and the Keene Pass. The first ten miles

of road were excellent. We then crossed a little stream known as Trout

Brook, a tributary of the Boquet, and, by a somewhat rough and stony

way, began to ascend the high land separating the Boquet from the Au

Sable. This ridge includes the 'Poke a Moonshine' Mountain, a rude pile

of rocks, burnt over, and with perpendicular precipices of some three or

four hundred feet, facing the road which winds along the bottom of the

declivity. This cleft thus becomes another 'Pass,' and, with the huge

rocks fallen at its base, offers a wild and rather dreary scene. To the

north, near the foot of the mountain, are two ponds, Butternut and

Auger, which wind fantastically in and out among the hills. As we

descended the ridge, we looked toward Canada, far away over rolling

plains and hillocks, and soon after reached the sandy stretch of the

basin of the Au Sable, in the midst of which is Keeneville, twenty-two

miles from Elizabethtown.

By the wayside we passed a solitary grave, the mound and headstone in a

patch of corn and potatoes. Was the unknown occupant some dear one whom

the dwellers in the humble cabin near by were unwilling to send far away

from daily remembrance, or were they too poor to seek the shelter of the

common graveyard, or, again, had the buriers of that dead one followed

to the 'land of promise,' or departed to some other far country, leaving

this grave to the care or rather carelessness of stranger hands, and did

the snowy headstone recall no memory of past love to the laborer who

ploughed his furrow near that mound, or to the children who played

around it?

Ah! thus, not only in the mystical caverns of beauty, poetry, and

romance are hidden the graves of buried hopes, but even amid the corn

and potatoes of daily life rise the ghostly head and foot stones of

aspirations dead and put away out of sight, dead in the body, in daily

act, but living yet in spirit, and influencing the commonplace facts to

which they have yielded the field, permeating the everyday routine with

the ennobling power of lofty desires, and keeping the wayworn traveller

from sinking into the slough of materialism or the quicksands of utter

weariness. The man who in his youth dreamed of elevating his kind by a

noble employment of the gifts of genius, may find that genius apparently

useless, a hindrance even to prosperity, but he can nevertheless sow

along his way seeds of beauty not lost upon the thinking beings about

him, and bearing fruit perhaps in some future generation. The woman

whose reveries have pictured her a Joan of Arc, leading her country's

armies to victory, and finally yielding her life in the good cause, may

sew for sanitary commissions, and, nursing in some hospital, dropping

medicines, making soups and teas, die of some deadly fever, a willing

sacrifice to her country.

Later in the day we saw the corn and potatoes growing up to the very

verge of an exquisite waterfall, reckless strength and glorious poetry

side by side with patient utility and humble prose. This union seemed

not strange and unnatural, as did that of the solitary grave with the

active labor of supplying the living with daily food, the grave the more

lonely that the living with their material wants encircled it so

closely.

Keeseville is a manufacturing town, situated upon the Au Sable, which

here breaks through a layer of Potsdam sandstone, and presents a series

of most interesting and wonderful falls and chasms. About a mile below

the village is the first fall of eighty feet. The river has here a large

body of water, and falls in fan shape over a rapid descent of steps. It

takes a sharp turn, so that without crossing the stream, a fine view can

be obtained of the dancing, glittering sheet of foam. About half a mile

below is Birmingham, another manufacturing town, which has done its

best, but without entire success, to destroy the beauty of the second

fall, immediately below the bridge, said bridge being erected upon

natural piers at the sides and in the centre of the stream.

Here begins a chasm which continues for the distance of about a mile and

a half. Wonderfully grand are these Walled Rocks of the Au Sable,

through, which rushes the river, pent up between literally perpendicular

walls, a hundred or more feet in height, and from eleven to sixty or

eighty feet apart, generally from twelve to fourteen. The water

sometimes rushes smoothly and deeply below, and sometimes falls over

obstructions, roaring, and tumbling, and foaming. The turns in the river

are very sudden, and there are great cracks and gullies extending from

top to base, pillars of rock standing alone or leaning against their

companions. Occasionally, looking down one of these clefts, one sees

nothing but the rock walls with a foaming, rapid rushing below. At one

of these most remarkable points, a rude stairway has been constructed,

by which the traveller can descend to the bottom, and, standing by the

water's edge, look up to the top of this singular chasm. The walls

finally lower, and the river flows out into a broad basin, whence it ere

long finds its way into Lake Champlain. The banks are wooded with pines,

hemlocks, spruce, arbor vitaae, beech, birch, and basswood, and the

ground is covered with ferns, harebells, arbutus, linnaea, mitchella,

blue lobelia, and other wild flowers.