HAY. 135 



I do not know to what extent the tract was a forest 

 when Bonaparte bought it, but it is well known that the 

 illustrious exile was an ardent lover of trees, and planted 

 many a hundred in his park of one thousand acres. But 

 the creek bank always was, as it still is, a natural arbore- 

 tum, and contains a greater variety of trees than any other 

 tract of the same area within a radius of many miles. 

 But time and circumstance put us in no statistical mood ; 

 we cared little then for the romantic history of the spot, 

 and even less for its purely botanical aspect. The min- 

 gling of every shade of green, from the gloomy cedars, look- 

 ing almost black, to the palest of the freshly budding oaks ; 

 the lichen-draped branches of the two-leaved pine and 

 trembling blossoms of the feathery June-berry, were here 

 too marked a feature of the landscape to permit our haste, 

 and we merely stemmed the tide while skirting the bluff. 



I would not that any word of mine should be con- 

 strued as unfavorable to strolling overland, but the vague 

 shadow of a doubt vexes me when I compare my upland 

 with my water rambles. It is of evident importance to 

 get a comprehensive view of one's surroundings, and this 

 you can often do when in a boat ; from which, too, we 

 catch glimpses of a wilder side of the world than is ever 

 turned to the public road. Few now are the lanes and 

 byways that are paths in a wilderness ; but here the creek 

 margined a narrow reach of unmolested nature, where 

 even the sly otter dared to have his slide. We did not see 

 the wary creature to-day. Perhaps but no, I will con- 

 fess it, we even could not find his tracks. But local Nim- 

 rods most veracious of men have hinted of his ottership 

 so often that the story added its charm to the steep and 

 slippery ribbon of faintly furrowed clay leading from one 

 great overhanging tree down to the water's edge. Wheth- 

 er the spot was an otter-slide or not, that the animal could 

 slip from his nest among the beech tree's roots if he has 



