So Near Along Life's Stream Are The Fountains Of
Innocence And Youth Making Fertile Its Sandy Margin; And The
Voyageur Will Do Well To Replenish His Vessels Often At These
Uncontaminated Sources.
Some youthful spring, perchance, still
empties with tinkling music into the oldest river, even when it
is falling into
The sea, and we imagine that its music is
distinguished by the river-gods from the general lapse of the
stream, and falls sweeter on their ears in proportion as it is
nearer to the ocean. As the evaporations of the river feed thus
these unsuspected springs which filter through its banks, so,
perchance, our aspirations fall back again in springs on the
margin of life's stream to refresh and purify it. The yellow and
tepid river may float his scow, and cheer his eye with its
reflections and its ripples, but the boatman quenches his thirst
at this small rill alone. It is this purer and cooler element
that chiefly sustains his life. The race will long survive that
is thus discreet.
Our course this morning lay between the territories of Merrimack,
on the west, and Litchfield, once called Brenton's Farm, on the
east, which townships were anciently the Indian Naticook.
Brenton was a fur-trader among the Indians, and these lands were
granted to him in 1656. The latter township contains about five
hundred inhabitants, of whom, however, we saw none, and but few
of their dwellings. Being on the river, whose banks are always
high and generally conceal the few houses, the country appeared
much more wild and primitive than to the traveller on the
neighboring roads.
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