316 In Touch with Nature. 



powerful incentive to dig. The world has had a 

 host of Captain Kidds, and no one will question 

 our right to search for whatsoever they have hid- 

 den. Then, too, let it be whispered, there is a 

 supreme delight in digging out of bounds. Of 

 course an archaeologist, historian, or curiosity 

 crank looks upon himself as not amenable to 

 common law, and in his case trespass is not tres- 

 pass. I speak from experience, governed in all 

 such cases by a juvenile phrase as faulty in gram- 

 mar as in morals, but very convenient, finding is 

 keeping. 



I stood now on the bank of the river, looking 

 landward. Stood where sturdy Dutch pioneers 

 had passed and repassed many times, and I almost 

 worked myself to the pitch of seeing the well- 

 worn path leading from the dwelling on the high 

 ground to the little wharf. There is almost nothing 

 left now for the imagination to build upon. Here 

 is the same island, but how changed ! The same 

 river, but lacking many a feature of its prehistoric 

 days. Here, happily, all trace of human industry 

 is shut out, and we have to do only with what 

 Nature in her varying moods has fashioned. Tall 



