A Calumet 



pipe was made seven years ago. He had cut the bowl out 

 of a soft black stone, and the stem was a twig from the 

 dehesa^ with the pith pushed out. This pipe at once struck 

 my fancy. It had a quaint barbarian character, and looked 

 something like one of the Red Indians' calumets on a small 

 scale. 



Harry was smoking a filthy white halfpenny clay, bought 

 at Gibraltar. I saw, by the man's looking at it, that he 

 thought Harry's the best of the two, and I said I had one 

 of that sort which I would swop with him. He jumped at 

 the idea, and I got mine out of the alforjas^ where it was 

 carefully stowed as a corps de rherve^ in case I broke my 

 own faithful black clay, which has served a year or 

 more. 



The man, seeing what a number of old gloves stiffened with 

 cards it came out of, conceived my halfpenny pipe must be 

 an object of great value, and evidently thought he had taken 

 advantage of my simplicity. But after all, perhaps he did 

 take me in. We value what is rare to us. To him the 

 civilised pipe was a rarity, to me the barbarian ; and if civili- 

 sation be the better state of the two, of course he had the 

 best of it. But then his pipe was unique — made by hand, 

 with much labour ; the other, turned out of a mould which 

 had fashioned fifty thousand. 



Riding on among the winding hills, a theory was started 

 to show why mountain scenery was more popular than dead 

 levels. We agreed that, more than superior beauty, rapid 

 change, and the uncertainty of what you are coming to, make 

 the reputation of mountains. Looking over a long plain, 

 and seeing all the towns and towers you can reach in a day 

 or two, is a limited species of foreknowledge, which is too 

 much for humanity. If we had the gift of prophecy, life 

 would be a dead level. That beautiful and accomplished 



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