coming and going, they veer to the southeast or west, and sail gayly
out of sight, leaving this northern curve of ours unvisited and alone.
A wilderness still, but not unexplored; for that railroad of the
future which is to make of British America a garden of roses, and turn
the wild trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company into gently smiling
congressmen, has it not sent its missionaries thither, to the
astonishment and joy of the beasts that dwelt therein? According to
tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and then crossed over
(those of them at least whom the beasts had spared) to the lower
peninsula, where, the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the
labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost themselves, and to
this day have never found what they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire
is occasionally seen, and now and then a distant shout heard by the
hunter passing along the outskirts, it is supposed, that they are in
there somewhere surveying still.

Not long ago, however, no white man's foot had penetrated within our
curve. Across the great river and over the deadly plains, down to the
burning clime of Mexico and up to the arctic darkness, journeyed our
countrymen, gold to gather and strange countries to see; but this
little pocket of land and water passed they by without a glance,
inasmuch as no iron mountains rose among its pines, no copper lay
hidden in its sand ridges, no harbors dented its shores. Thus it
remained an unknown region, and enjoyed life accordingly. But the
white man's foot, well booted, was on the way, and one fine afternoon
came tramping through. 'I wish I was a tree,' said this white man, one
Jarvis Waring by name. 'See that young pine, how lustily it grows,
feeling its life to the very tip of each green needle! How it thrills
in the sun's rays, how strongly, how completely it carries out the
intention of its existence! It never, has a headache, it--Bah!