A TRIP TO THE LA VAL. 81 
down tlie spear and took up his paddle, the greatest 
example of self-command and honest sportsmanship I 
ever knew. General Washington, when he refused to be 
king, was no greater. My friend was not rewarded if he 
did not sleep happier for it that night in the old cabin on 
the shore of Lake la Yal ; and if the tailing pipe of the 
rotting stove that nearly crushed his head had killed 
him, he wonld have died virtuous, respected and without 
reproach. 
Oh, that I had the pen of Julius Csesar, Homer, 
Shakspeare, or even Byron, that I might write an ode 
to sapin, the balsam fir-tree ! Tree of the weary woods- 
man, tree of the luxurious sportsman, tree of all men 
whom the drowsy god catches in the woods and compels 
to his embraces ! A bed of thy leaves is softer than one 
of eider-down, and far more comfortable. A prince 
might sleep on thee and dream he was in paradise. 
Thou preservest us from colds, from rheumatism, and the 
many ills that flow from the evil humors of the cold 
ground. Tliy leaves, growing in one direction from the 
stem, will lie flat, and may be piled to any depth — a foot 
of luxury, as in our permanent camp — and make a couch 
that combines the softness of the feather-bed with the 
firmness of the mattress, and an elasticity purely thy 
own. To thee, and to thy mate the hemlock, and thy 
associate the white birch, I now, far from thee, waft, in 
a cloud of tobacco-smoke, my love. Go on, increase and 
wax great ; may often the one support me on the land, 
the other on the water ! 
When the next mornino^'s sun had once more brouo-ht 
round my birthday, the thirty-first that had ever dawned, 
4* 
