A Thousand-Mile Walk 
by which I entered the promised land. Salt 
marshes, belonging more to the sea than to the 
land; with groves here and there, green and un- 
flowered, sunk to the shoulders in sedges and 
rushes; with trees farther back, ill defined in 
their boundary, and instead of rising in hilly 
waves and swellings, stretching inland in low 
water-like levels. 
We were all discharged by the captain of the 
steamer without breakfast, and, after meeting 
and examining the new plants that crowded 
about me, I threw down my press and little 
bag beneath a thicket, where there was a dry 
spot on some broken heaps of grass and roots, 
something like a deserted muskrat house, and 
applied myself to my bread breakfast. Every- 
thing in earth and sky had an impression of 
strangeness; not a mark of friendly recognition, 
not a breath, not a spirit whisper of sympathy 
came from anything about me, and of course 
I was lonely. I lay on my elbow eating my 
bread, gazing, and listening to the profound 
strangeness. 
[ 88 ] 
