156 
WALDEN. 
and also sleep, owing to “ the savages’ barbarous singing, 
(for they used to sing themselves asleep,) ” and that 
they might get home while they had strength to travel, 
they departed. As for lodging, it is true they were but 
poorly entertained, though what they found an incon¬ 
venience was no doubt intended for an honor; but as far 
as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians 
could have done better. They had nothing to eat them¬ 
selves, and they were wiser than to think that apolo¬ 
gies could supply the place of food to their guests; so 
they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. 
Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a 
season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in 
this respect. 
As for men, they will hardly fail one any where. I 
had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at 
any other period of my life; I mean that I had some. 
I met several there under more favorable circumstances 
than I could any where else. But fewer came to see 
me upon trivial business. In this respect, my company 
was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had 
withdrawn! so far within the great ocean of solitude, 
into which the rivers of society empty, that for the 
most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the 
finest sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there 
were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and un¬ 
cultivated continents on the other side. 
Who should come to my lodge this morning but a 
true Homeric or Paphlagonian man, — he had so suit¬ 
able and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print 
it here, — a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker, 
who can hole fifty posts in a day, who made his last 
supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, 
