A WORD AT THE START. 9 



Relic-hunting, properly conducted, is an art, and had 

 better be treated as such. It is too laborious for quiet 

 rambling as the eyes must always be fixed on the 

 ground. 



Here, to-day, much as in the olden time, are the broad 

 stretches of meadow that, skirting the Delaware, are my 

 constant delight and the scenes of my happiest days out- 

 of-doors. Back from the river, more than half a mile, 

 and parallel to it, is the elevated plateau that extends east- 

 ward and seaward. From the one to the other there is 

 no sloping, intervening stretch of land, other than the 

 meadows. To pass from the uplands to the lowlands 

 you must trip down a steep descent of eighty feet. Steep 

 as it is, it is well wooded, and is the " hill-side " of which 

 I shall say much hereafter. It is a jolly place for those 

 given to quiet rambles. There the earliest spring flowers 

 are to be found, and to gather the earliest bloom of the 

 year is surely worth an effort. There, too, tarry the fore- 

 runners of the flight of summer songsters that gladden the 

 hearts of all who hear their melody, for no subsequent 

 songs are so charming as the first notes of the pioneer 

 thrush, red-wing, or oriole. 



My house stands on the very edge of this terrace, and 

 is so placed that from my windows I can see the meadows 

 below and the river beyond. A substantial structure it 

 is, and it answered my great-grandfathers' modest wants 

 though it does not suit me ; still I am compensated for 

 what it lacks, in the oaks, beeches, and locusts that sur- 

 round it, as it is under them that I live. So much, then, 

 as to the place where I live. Evidently there is not a 

 single romantic feature in the neighborhood. The first 

 Europeans who settled here were Quakers, and the plain- 



