for ever since. But the man of science had ransacked every hill
along the Saco, and knew nothing of these prodigious piles of
wealth. By this time, as usual with men on the eve of great
adventure, we had prolonged our session deep into the night,
considering how early we were to set out on our six miles' ride to
the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a general breaking up.
I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, and saw but little
probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly bliss, in the
first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of three, to
climb above the clouds; nor, when I felt how sharp the wind was as
it rushed through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of my
unplastered chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part,
though we were to seek for the "Great Carbuncle."



THE CANAL-BOAT.

I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In my
imagination De Witt Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved his
magic wand from the Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a watery
highway, crowded with the commerce of two worlds, till then
inaccessible to each other. This simple and mighty conception had
conferred inestimable value on spots which Nature seemed to have
thrown carelessly into the great body of the earth, without
foreseeing that they could ever attain importance. I pictured the
surprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the new river first glittered
by their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign commodities in
exchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely the water
of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for it