A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



the water forced its way through many chinks 

 sportively, in cool jets, and ran glistening down 

 the old logs and beams into a pretty sandy pool 

 below, where it boiled and raced in solitude, and 

 then went singing down the valley through the 

 marsh grasses. On those torrid nights we came 

 stealthily with the yellow dog through the jun 

 gle, let ourselves down the bank, and, after de 

 nuding, sprawled and splashed in the pool until 

 the shadows wrapped us in their soft garments, 

 and the stars came out and laughed at us. 



There was undoubtedly some kind of unsus 

 pected magic in the place, now that I think of it. 

 The old dam was like an orchestra of oboes and 

 flutes, to which the little raceway added a chorus 

 of its own, and somehow the element itself had 

 the air and the ingenuousness of youth not yet 

 grown lusty and rank and boisterous. All we 

 had to do was to accept its limpid invitation, and 

 it covered us with cool kisses in which there was 

 a breath of mint and calamus. To catch water 

 in its pudicity, before it has grown salacious and 

 turbulent and put on the hoary airs of the ocean, 

 is a rare delight. It is like establishing an under- 



O O 



standing with a dog or going down into the 

 nursery to rest your soul with a bit of &quot; who s 

 got the button ? &quot; If you have only known 

 water at the seashore, in its acrid puissance, when 

 it is like a trade union and glories in its whelm 

 ing multitudinousness, you can have no idea of 

 its tender intimacies when you catch it in the 

 nursery of its career. 



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