232 AMERICAN GAME. 
it must be considered as a sport, and as one of a high 
and noble order. To these advantages again are to be- 
added the wild and glorious haunts of nature into which 
it leads our vagrant footsteps—the springs, fitted to be 
the baths of brighter nymphs than any of those who 
trod immortal, Dryads or Oreads of Delia’s train, by 
which we eat our frugal meal, and with which we qualify 
our temperate cups—the high and liberal mountain-tops, 
visited by a clearer and more lustrous sunshine, fanned 
by a purer and more exhilarating air, than any known to 
the sleek citizen, to which we climb, led by the fierce 
excitement of pursuit; and then the ruddy watch-fire 
silently blazing in the depths of the mysterious wilder- 
ness before the bark-roofed shanty, before the hemlock 
bed, which shelter and console us after the long tramp 
and the hurried chase—the awakening to the cries of the 
early birds, in the fresh gray of the awakening dawn, 
the delicious bath in the clear basin of the mountain- 
torrent, the woodman’s morning meal of trout or venison, 
cooked by the glowing embers, and eaten with no better 
condiments than appetite and exercise and health may 
furnisli—all these—all these are the delights which add 
so inspiriting a charm to the North Country still-hunt, 
and half tempt the dwellers of pent cities to abandon 
the culture, the luxury, the companionship, and the civ- 
ilization of gentlemen, for the more congenial toils and 
more inspiriting delights of the woodman’s life. 
