MY GUIDE. 59 



mg into its leafy grottoes, wliere some lovely estuary 

 shot landward among the trees. 



My guide was a philosopher in his way, as well as 

 an original. His age was about forty-eight, and hia 

 frame was of that robust, hardy, and enduring kind, 

 that is found mostly among the border men of 

 our country. The refinements of society he knew 

 nothing about. He had spent his life in the back 

 settlements, and in the woods. He was a strong- 

 minded man by nature, and a thoughtful one. And 

 his solitary ramblings, his forest experience, had made 

 him a reflecting and a wise man in his way. 



He had once visited the city, and been followed by 

 the boys, and pronounced green. He took an antip- 

 athy to paved streets, the rumbling of carriages, and 

 the impertinence of loafers, and swears he will never 

 go within sight or sound of a city again. He de- 

 scribed to me his journey, and his original way of 

 telling his adventures amused me. " I had," said he, 

 " seen all the wonders of the woods ; I had tussled 

 with the painters, and taken it rough and tumble with 

 the bears; I had killed the largest catamount, and 

 skinned the biggest buck of the Shatagee. I had 

 slept in the woods for months. I had hunted the 



