216 ENDURING FATIGUE. 



to carry much up such an ascent, added in no small 

 degree to the disgust I felt with the monotony of a 

 scene in which I was surrounded in all directions by 

 pine-stems, all straight, all of the same colour, and 

 all apparently exactly the counterpart of their neigh- 

 bours. 



When scenery is varied, more particularly if it 

 be attractive, pleasure and admiration are excited ; 

 and thus, while the mind is actively employed, bodily 

 ailments or fatigue are forgotten ; but when there is 

 nothing to distract the attention, the pressure of the 

 pack-straps upon your shoulder, or the chaffing of the 

 string of the mocassins, keep the wearied traveller 

 in a constant state of irritation. 



There are very few persons that I have met 

 whom fortune has more favoured with the power of 

 enduring fatigue than myself, but if there is one 

 thing I abominate more than another, it is turning 

 myself into a beast of burthen. On the occasion 

 in question my load was not a heavy one, but the 

 strap that attached it to me was most galling to my 

 shoulder, which it deprived of a portion of the cuticle. 

 Moreover, the journey had been tedious, and we 

 had to traverse hemlock swamps, which were more 

 than usually dense, while the soil beneath was so 

 spongy that the indentation caused by the foot rilled 

 immediately after a step was made with water. Is it 

 then to be wondered at, that I hailed with pleasure a 

 gradual decrease in the closeness of the large timber, 

 and a more varied growth of underbrush, both 



