A Hunt for the Pyxie 63 



ern New Jersey), and just here was no place 

 to tarry, unless to court melancholy. It was 

 not required that my companion should enu- 

 merate the reasons why the one-time farm 

 along the river-bank had been abandoned. 

 A glance at the surrounding fields told the 

 whole story. There was, indeed, barren- 

 ness, — and very different, this, from what ob- 

 tains in localities near by to which the same 

 term is applied. In the so-called pine barrens 

 there is a luxuriant vegetation ; but here about 

 the deserted house and out-building there 

 was nothing but glistening sand, moss, and 

 those pallid grasses that suggest death rather 

 than life, however feeble. And how widely 

 different is it to be surrounded by ruin 

 wrought by man, and to be in a forest where 

 man has never been ! Could I not have 

 turned my back upon the scene and looked 

 out only upon the river, the day's pleasure 

 would have vanished. But we were soon 

 away, and a naturalist's paradise was spread 

 before us. What constitutes such a place ? 

 Not necessarily one where man has never 

 been : it will suffice if Nature has withstood 

 his interference ; and this is true of these 

 pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this 



