PITFALLS OF MONTICELLO. 223 



whatever direction the stream of life was turned, there, with 

 magic rapidity and in a mode quite inexplicable, yawning 

 gulfs of a similar description were opened for its interruption. 



As these mysterious pitfalls became more numerous, the 

 number of those which fell into them was not augmented 

 certainly to quite a proportionate degree. This was only on 

 account of the greater care taken, in general, to escape them ; 

 but under these precautions, and the fear which suggested them, 

 the citizens of Monticello became quite an altered people, their 

 activities being well-nigh paralyzed by substantial hindrances 

 and vague apprehensions. Whenever, according to daily 

 usage and necessity, parties proceeded from the capital to 

 bring in from -the surrounding country both materials for 

 building and supplies of provision, they were generally obli- 

 ged to take such circuitous and untrodden routes, that they 

 were half dead when they returned, from fatigue as well as 

 fear fear not only of the traps, which were discernible, but 

 of the trap-makers, who had been as yet invisible. None of 

 these, at least, had ever been seen at their mining operations, 

 though some declared they had beheld what they believed 

 to be the agents of all the mischief, in certain strange and 

 hideous shapes met lurking under shade of evening, or of the 

 green coverts adjacent to the city. 



It was customary, in the republican nation of which Monti- 

 cello was the metropolis, to confide the care of all the infant 

 population to public nurses, who were usually the best nurses 



