any point, one can put himself into solitude and every desirable
discomfort. The party that covets the experience of the camp comes
down to primitive conditions of dress and equipment. There are
guides and porters to carry the blankets for beds, the raw
provisions, and the camp equipage; and the motley party of the
temporarily decivilized files into the woods, and begins, perhaps by
a road, perhaps on a trail, its exhilarating and weary march. The
exhilaration arises partly from the casting aside of restraint,
partly from the adventure of exploration; and the weariness, from the
interminable toil of bad walking, a heavy pack, and the grim monotony
of trees and bushes, that shut out all prospect, except an occasional
glimpse of the sky. Mountains are painfully climbed, streams forded,
lonesome lakes paddled over, long and muddy "carries" traversed.
Fancy this party the victim of political exile, banished by the law,
and a more sorrowful march could not be imagined; but the voluntary
hardship becomes pleasure, and it is undeniable that the spirits of
the party rise as the difficulties increase.

For this straggling and stumbling band the world is young again: it
has come to the beginning of things; it has cut loose from tradition,
and is free to make a home anywhere: the movement has all the promise
of a revolution. All this virginal freshness invites the primitive
instincts of play and disorder. The free range of the forests
suggests endless possibilities of exploration and possession.
Perhaps we are treading where man since the creation never trod
before; perhaps the waters of this bubbling spring, which we deepen
by scraping out the decayed leaves and the black earth, have never
been tasted before, except by the wild denizens of these woods. We
cross the trails of lurking animals,--paths that heighten our sense
of seclusion from the world. The hammering of the infrequent