When We Passed Wicasuck Island, There Was A Pleasure-Boat
Containing A Youth And A Maiden On The Island Brook,
Which we
were pleased to see, since it proved that there were some
hereabouts to whom our excursion would not
Be wholly strange.
Before this, a canal-boatman, of whom we made some inquiries
respecting Wicasuck Island, and who told us that it was disputed
property, suspected that we had a claim upon it, and though we
assured him that all this was news to us, and explained, as well
as we could, why we had come to see it, he believed not a word of
it, and seriously offered us one hundred dollars for our title.
The only other small boats which we met with were used to pick up
driftwood. Some of the poorer class along the stream collect, in
this way, all the fuel which they require. While one of us
landed not far from this island to forage for provisions among
the farm-houses whose roofs we saw, for our supply was now
exhausted, the other, sitting in the boat, which was moored to
the shore, was left alone to his reflections.
If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveller always
has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new
page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and
the inquiring may always read a new truth there. There are
things there written with such fine and subtile tinctures, paler
than the juice of limes, that to the diurnal eye they leave no
trace, and only the chemistry of night reveals them.
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