A Thousand-Mile Walk 



by which I entered the promised land. Salt 

 marshes, belonging more to the sea than to the 

 land; with groves here and there, green and un- 

 flowered, sunk to the shoulders in sedges and 

 rushes; with trees farther back, ill defined in 

 their boundary, and instead of rising in hilly 

 waves and swellings, stretching inland in low 

 water-like levels. 



We were all discharged by the captain of the 

 steamer without breakfast, and, after meeting 

 and examining the new plants that crowded 

 about me, I threw down my press and little 

 bag beneath a thicket, where there was a dry 

 spot on some broken heaps of grass and roots, 

 something like a deserted muskrat house, and 

 applied myself to my bread breakfast. Every 

 thing in earth and sky had an impression of 

 strangeness ; not a mark of friendly recognition, 

 not a breath, not a spirit whisper of sympathy 

 came from anything about me, and of course 

 I was lonely. I lay on my elbow eating my 

 bread, gazing, and listening to the profound 

 strangeness. 



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