(Brass is <3reen 



was a wealth of beauty in the brief gloaming. 

 The dimmed light gave the meadows the appear- 

 ance of a misty mirror ; for the muddy waters were 

 now at rest, except in the wake of my boat. Rest- 

 ing, I thought, after a tumultuous trip from the 

 mountains, and regaining strength before journey- 

 ing to the sea. So much for fancy, but there was 

 a fact that I recalled. The quiet waters were 

 slowly depositing the soil they had brought from 

 the hills ; lowering them and building up the tracts 

 of pasture lands that skirt the Delaware for many 

 miles. 



II 



UNDER no other circumstances can the outdoor 

 naturalist see so much and so satisfactorily as when 

 in a boat ; not some puffing, crowded public affair, 

 that plies up and down the river, but when alone 

 in a row-boat of his own. I say " little," for the 

 smaller the better, as the best things in the matter 

 of wild-life are so apt to be in the half-hidden in- 

 flowing brooks and vine-embowered bays that have 

 scarcely any inlet from the main stream. These 

 inland creeks are all treasure houses to the natu- 

 ralist, though barren wastes to those unfortunate 

 people who have no taste for the scattered rem- 

 nants of the world still left as nature designed 

 them. 



Those who have ever reversed a spy-glass, and 

 made near-by objects look as if a mile distant, 

 89 



