308 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



ennui, for we had few sources of entertainment. Our walks 

 were limited as the ground was not very eligible, but I 

 enjoyed riding on horseback through the pine woods, in 

 company with a lady friend, Miss Davenport, now and for 

 many years the wife of Rev. Dr. Skinner of New York, 

 Mrs. Silliman not preferring that kind of exercise. We 

 had more time than spirits for reading in our chamber ; the 

 evenings were generally passed in the parlor, where we 

 were entertained by a band of musicians, who also sum 

 moned us to dinner with the Marseilles Hymn, or God save 

 the Queen, or Hail Columbia. 



In 1797, soon after leaving College, owing to a wound 

 in my foot from an axe, I was in danger of lockjaw, and a 

 nervous debility followed after the immediate danger was 

 removed. This induced me to pass a month at Ballston 

 Springs. My companions were Mr. John Winn, and the 

 Hon. John Elliott, both from Sunbury, Liberty County, 

 Georgia. We performed the journey on horseback, and 

 of course rode daily at Ballston when the weather was 

 favorable. There was but one hotel, that of Aldrich, and 

 in the street in front of the house the sparkling fountain 

 of chalybeate water, brisk with carbonic acid gas, rose as 

 if joyous, from the earth ; and the area was enclosed within 

 an iron railing. We of course visited Saratoga, which has 

 now become a large and celebrated town, owing to the 

 excellence of its waters. Reverting to 1797, the period of 

 my early visit, it is interesting to mention the condition of 

 Saratoga at that time. We, the little party before named, 

 Mr. Elliott, Mr. Winn and myself, mounted our horses one 

 day and rode seven or eight miles through the pine forest, 

 with its delightful fragrance, and arrived at the place where 

 they said that there were some mineral springs. There 

 was not even a village, but only two or three log-houses 

 standing among the pine-trees. The people were civil, and 

 provided hay for our horses, and for ourselves bacon and 

 eggs. They then piloted us into a morass where nature 



