PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE. 15 



always sealed up, and I presume they have the best 

 time of it. Their hearts never radiate into the void ^ 

 they do not yearn and sympathize without return ^ 

 they do not leave themselves by the wayside as the- 

 sheep leaves her wool upon the brambles and thorns.. 

 This branch of the Delaware, so far as I could 

 learn, had never before been descended by a white 

 man in a boat. Rafts of pine and hemlock timber 

 are run down on the spring and fall freshets, but of 

 pleasure seekers in boats I appeared to be the first. 

 Hence my advent was a surprise to most creatures in 

 the water and out. I surprised the cattle in the field,, 

 and those ruminating leg-deep in the water turned 

 their heads at my approach, swallowed their unfin- 

 ished cuds, and scampered off as if they had seen a 

 spectre. I surprised the fish on their spawning beds 

 and feeding grounds ; they scattered, as my shadow 

 glided down upon them, like chickens when a hawk 

 appears. I surprised an ancient fisherman seated on 

 a spit of gravelly beach, with his back up stream, and 

 leisurely angling in a deep, still eddy, and mumbling 

 to himself. As I slid into the circle of his vision his 

 grip on his pole relaxed, his jaw dropped, and he was 

 too bewildered to reply to my salutation for some 

 moments. As I turned a bend in the river I looked 

 back, and saw him hastening away with great precip- 

 itation. I presume he had angled there for forty 

 years without having his privacy thus intruded upon. 

 [ surprised hawks and herons and kingfishers. I 

 came suddenly upon musk-rats, and raced with them 



