AMERICAN ADVENTURES




CHAPTER I

ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES

On journeys through the States we start,
... We willing learners of all, teachers of all, lovers of all.

We dwell a while in every city and town ...

--WALT WHITMAN.



Had my companion and I never crossed the continent together, had we
never gone "abroad at home," I might have curbed my impatience at the
beginning of our second voyage. But from the time we returned from our
first journey, after having spent some months in trying, as some one put
it, to "discover America," I felt the gnawings of excited appetite. The
vast sweep of the country continually suggested to me some great
delectable repast: a banquet spread for a hundred million guests; and
having discovered myself unable, in the time first allotted, to devour
more than part of it--a strip across the table, as it were, stretching
from New York on one side to San Francisco on the other--I have hungered