LETTER XVI. 173 



and if finding her meant a life in the Adirondacks, 

 I am glad I didn't. From Saratoga to the Blue 

 Mountain is a twelve hours' journey, most of it 

 along the banks of the Hudson River. The 

 scenery, of course, is delightful, though marred, 

 to my mind, in no small degree by the hosts of 

 blanched and weather-beaten pine-logs which lie 

 stranded on the shores, shoals, and rocks of the 

 river, much as you saw them at Glen Falls, 

 though, of course, in smaller numbers. When a 

 flood comes they will start afresh upon the 

 journey they commenced last spring, until, at 

 Glen Falls, they are caught in the floating boom, 

 and told off according to the trade-mark on their 

 butts, into the partitions assigned to their respec- 

 tive owners. At the railway terminus a stage- 

 coach with six horses met us, followed by a 

 number of buck-board traps for those whose 

 destinations were close at hand. Almost before 

 I had realized what the next stage of the journey 

 was to be, I heard the cry of ' All aboard,' and 

 the coach dashed away at full speed. Luckily I 

 was just in time ; but it does not do to linger 

 much in changing carriages if you don't mean to 

 be left behind in America. On the coach I had 

 the luck to meet two young Americans going in, 

 like myself, to shoot deer. They were really 

 good fellows, and, like all their race, hospitable 



