the children were sent to bed, he read aloud a chapter from the Bible. This he kept up to the time of his death. I remember well the pride and alacrity with which one of us boys, taking turns, would bring the big family Bible and lay it on the table before him.

        Such were the influences under which my own religious nature grew. Hence it was that I was first orthodox of the orthodox; later, as thought germinated and grew apace, I adopted a liberal interpretation of orthodoxy; then, gradually I became unorthodox; then in deep sympathy with the most liberal movement of Christian thought; and finally, to some extent, a leader in that movement.

        Of all the influences determining my character and tastes, the personality of my father was by far the most potent. Next in importance to this, undoubtedly, was the freedom of my boyhood life in a country abounding in game of all sorts. This developed a passionate fondness for nature in all departments and for field sports of all kinds, with bow and arrow, with gun, and with fishing-line. As I grew older this love of nature took on higher forms; first in the study of ornithology, and later in camping trips, undertaken partly in the spirit of adventure

and partly for the geological study of mountains.

        I linger with especial delight on this early plantation life, far from town and the busy hum of men; a life that has passed forever. It will live for a time in the memory of a few, and then only in history. It was, indeed, a very paradise for boys. My father never forbade us the use of firearms, but merely counseled their careful use. The result justified the wisdom of his method. Four of us boys with guns on our shoulders all the time, and yet never an accident! Guns there were a plenty in the house - guns of all kinds, rifles and shot-guns, single-barreled guns and double-barreled guns, muskets and sporting guns, big guns, little guns, and medium-sized guns, long guns and short guns. There was a complete armory of them up-stairs in one of the closets, besides several in the hands of the most trusty negro men to shoot game and wild animals of prey and crop-destroying birds. There must have been at least twenty of them. How they came there was first revealed to us by a garrulous old negro man named Samson. The story as told by him, and in all essentials afterward confirmed by my father, was as follows:

        My grandfather, John Eatton Le Conte, as already stated, was accustomed to spend his winters on his Georgia plantation and his summers in New York. At this time - soon after the War of the Revolution - the Indian country was just over the Altamaha River, about fifteen to twenty miles from the plantation. The intervening country, now McIntosh County, was pine barren and almost uninhabited. It was a sort of neutral ground, a no-man's land. The Indians had several times raided the rich plantations of Liberty, and escaped again into the Indian territory on the other side of the Altamaha. Their success had emboldened them, and as our plantation was on the south border of Liberty it was peculiarly exposed.

        My grandfather had prepared for attack by building a stockade and fortifying it with old revolutionary muskets, and had given directions to the negroes to seek shelter there in case of a raid. One day about noon, the negroes came running toward the fort in great alarm, closely pursued by the Indians to the very door. Most of the negroes got in safely, but one powerful negro man was seized by two Indians just at the door. In the struggle, all fell together to the ground, the negro beneath. My grandfather

fired a load of buckshot at the struggling mass; the two Indians were instantly killed, but the negro springing up entered the fort. He had been grazed across the chest by a shot, but not hurt. Then commenced a regular battle, lasting two or three hours, the Indians, several hundreds, fighting with their bows and arrows, and the garrison with muskets. I wish I could give in Samson's words a description of the battle - how my grandfather with a few of the bravest negroes, stood at the loopholes, fired, handed back the empty muskets to be reloaded, took loaded ones in their stead, and fired again. Finally, the Indian chief, in his eagerness to encourage his braves to storm the fort, unwarily exposed himself, and was brought down with a broken leg by a shot. The Indians immediately made a bold dash, carried off their chief, took horses from the stable, bound the chief on one of them, and hastily fled, carrying their dead and wounded with them. They did not go, however, without booty. According to Samson's account, three negro women and Samson himself were captured before they could reach the fort, and were carried away by the Indians in their flight. The Liberty troop hearing of the raid, organized and pursued, but, as they supposed, never

overtook them. Samson, however, told a different story. According to him, they did overtake the Indians, but these lay concealed and watched the troop pass by, taking the precaution, however, of grasping the throats of their prostrate prisoners with one hand, while they brandished a glittering knife with the other.

        Samson was in the Indian territory for three years, and then came back to the plantation and was made one of the head men there. He says the Indians treated their captives well, quite as equals, especially the women, whom they took as wives. These never came back, because they had children to care for. Samson, according to his own story, ran away several times, and was recaptured; but finally succeeded in getting back. In telling this story, which he did very often, the old man would become so excited that the foam would fly from his lips. A short account of this raid is given in White's Historical Collections of Georgia, but all the interesting details given by Samson were unknown, and are now given for the first time.

        Concerning my education, the really best I got was informal. First and most important of all was the daily companionship of my father. Next to this was the many mechanical operations

going on continually on the plantation; and third, the unlimited freedom of the plantation life far away from city ways, and directed only by a wise father. Of the first of these, I have already said enough. A few words now on the two others.

        In these early days, everything was done on the plantation. There were tanneries in which the hides of slaughtered cattle were made into leather. There was a shoemaker's shop, where from the leather made on the place the shoes for all the negroes were made by negro shoemakers. There were blacksmith and carpenter shops, where all the work needed on the plantation was done by negro blacksmiths and carpenters. All the rice raised on the plantation was thrashed, winnowed, and beaten by machinery made on the spot, driven by horse-power, and the horses by negro boys. All the cotton was ginned and cleaned and packed on the place. As the cotton was Sea Island, or long-staple, Whitney's invention was of no use, and only roller gins could be used, at first, foot-gins, and later horse-gins. For the same reason - viz., the fineness of the staple - the cotton was all packed by hand and foot, the packer standing in the suspended bag. All these

operations of tanning, shoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentering, the thrashing, winnowing, and beating of rice, and the ginning, cleaning, and packing of cotton, were watched with intensest interest by us boys, and often we gave a helping hand ourselves. There was always especial interest in the ginning of cotton by foot and the thrashing of the rice by flail, because these were carried on by great numbers working together, the one by women, and the other by men, and always with singing and shouting and keeping time with the work. The negroes themselves enjoyed it hugely.

        Far away from any city as we were, whatever we wanted we were compelled to make. If we wanted marbles, we made them, and excellent marbles they were. If we wanted kites, we made them, and none better were ever made. We, of course, wanted bows and arrows - we therefore made them, as fine bows and as exquisitely finished arrows as I have ever seen. We had an ambition to have pistols; we made them also, and here it may be interesting to trace the evolution of the pistol as I observed it myself. First, little lead cannons were cast in a paper mold over a rod of wood. Then these were mounted as lead pistols, touched off

by a sort of match-lock. This was as far as most of us went; but one of my brothers, Lewis, had remarkable mechanical talent. Not satisfied with such crude results, he continued to improve his firearms. First, he cast the lead on iron gas tubes, drilled out to smooth bore. Then he improved these by fitting to the gas tube a breaching of iron, with chamber and touch-hole drilled out, and casting lead over all; then he enlarged the pistol to rifle size, adding lock, spring, hammer, and nipple, all of which he made himself; then he mounted this barrel on a beautiful stock of bird's-eye maple, with guard and trigger and grease-box complete, and trimmed it with an alloy of lead, zinc, and antimony of his own manufacture. The whole was beautifully chased and engraved with tools of his own making. The final result was as beautiful a rifle as I ever saw, and as efficient too. With this rifle I have seen him bring down a squirrel from the top of a hundred-foot tree, with a bullet through its brain.

        This same brother when a boy twelve years old made the most exquisite bows and arrows, and I have known him to bring home to breakfast eight or ten birds as the fruits of his wonderful archery.

        Still another, and most important part, of this informal education was the free plantation life with unlimited game and fish. As has been said, if anything unusual was got, whether fish or fowl or reptile or mammal or even insect, we were sure to bring it home for father to name. This kind of life is an admirable culture for a boy. It not only contributes to physical health but also to mental health, by continual contact with nature and by cultivation of the powers of observation. In addition, it cultivates in an admirable way quick perception, prompt decision, and persistent energy and patience in pursuit. In the ardor of duck-hunting, I have been compelled to creep on hands and knees for hours to secure the quarry.

        I know well that there is much to be said against the destruction of life for sport. I felt this myself, even as a boy. I well remember that at the age of eleven, when I first began to carry a gun, one of my earliest triumphs was that of bringing down a gray squirrel from the top of a tall tree. But my triumph was quickly changed into keenest remorse when I saw it convulsed and dying at my feet. Habit, excitement of the chase, fulness of physical health and animal spirits, dulled, but never wholly

quenched, my keen sympathy with animal suffering. I was taught by my father, and impelled by my own nature, never to destroy life for mere sport. Sport enough there was, but always in accomplishing some ulterior and useful purpose.

        This was in boyhood; now, in my old age, with decline of intense vitality, all the tenderness of my sympathy with animal life returns in full force. I can no longer take the least pleasure in shooting or in seeing shooting, not only because the pleasure of physical activity is less, but also because my sympathy with all life is more keen.

        Many who may read the above will conclude that I am an anti-vivisectionist. Not so. Undoubtedly our sympathy with life ought to be universal, and the more, the better. Yes, but it ought to be in exact proportion to the grade of life. I would, I ought to, destroy a thousand fleas for the comfort of a faithful dog. So, also, I ought to be willing to destroy a thousand dogs for the health and well-being of man. Of course it should be with the least suffering possible under the circumstances. But remember, that suffering, too, is in proportion to the grade of life. It is not true that

                        The poor beetle that we tread upon,
                        In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
                        As when a giant dies.

        Other sports, less objectionable, we had in plenty. When I was about ten years old, the three younger boys, John, Lewis, and I, undertook, with the help of an intelligent and ingenious negro man, Primus, and with the permission of father to use Primus for this purpose, to make a fine dugout canoe out of a large cypress log three feet in diameter. We were several months making it, but when finished, it was a large and beautiful canoe. The amount of joy we got out of that canoe was incalculable. Whole days were spent in the exploration of the great swamp on which the plantation was situated. I am sure we felt, on a small scale, all the joy and pride of discoverers of unknown lands. During the times of high water by winter freshets, the rice-fields, at that time bare of rice, formed a splendid sheet of water two miles long and half a mile wide. We sometimes rigged a mast and sail, but as the canoe was not suited to this kind of propulsion, we often suffered shipwreck in water two or three feet deep. But to a boy this only gave zest to the enjoyment. Much of our duck-hunting was done in

this canoe, and I became very expert in the use of the paddle and in the management of a canoe.

        As might be supposed, in a warm climate and by an abundance of water, swimming, too, was a favorite sport. I very early learned to swim. I was a good swimmer at ten; and in early manhood, I never knew a better swimmer, and but few equal to myself. Even now at seventy-seven, my swimming is a marvel to the onlooker. I do not at all exaggerate when I say that to me swimming is still as easy, and I think perhaps a little easier, than walking. The reason is obvious. I am of slender frame, long limbs, small bones, and large lungs. I can now throw out more than three hundred cubic inches of air. The specific gravity of my body is less than that of water, even fresh water. I can, therefore, lie motionless floating on the water, breathing perfectly naturally, for any length of time - I believe I could go to sleep. Of course then the least exertion properly applied produces easy and graceful locomotion.

        During my boyhood there were on the plantation three very old negroes who were native Africans and remembered their African home. They were Sessy, a little old man bent almost double; Nancy, an old woman with filed teeth;

and Charlotte, who left Africa, according to her own account, when she was about twelve. All of them, of course, were superannuated and taken care of without any remuneration. Sessy was extravagantly fond of alligator meat, and always begged us boys to bring him the tails of any alligators we might kill. Small alligators, six and seven feet long, abounded in the swamp, and we never failed to shoot them whenever we could, as they were great destroyers of fish, and, although we cared little for them, interfered somewhat with our swimming. Now and then longer and more dangerous ones appeared; the largest we ever killed was fourteen feet long. This one was drawn out of his hole during low water in the swamp, by a hook attached to a long pole, and about twenty-five negro men ahold of the pole. It was great sport, and I often afterward told the story to my children.

        There was also on a neighboring plantation an old native African named Philip, who was a very intelligent man. He used to tell us all about the customs and religion of the country from which he came. He was not a pagan, but a Mohammedan. He greatly interested us by going through all the prayers and prostrations

of his native country. He also gave us the numerals up to twenty; these were, of course, native African, not Arabic. They were: go, dede, tata, nigh, ja, ja go, ja ded, ja tata, ja nigh, suppe, suppa go, suppa dede, suppa tata, suppa nigh, suppa ja, suppa ja go, suppa ja dede, suppa ja tata, suppa ja nigh. It is seen that they counted by fives and not by tens, as we do.

        As to formal education, all the schooling I got was in a neighborhood country school, of all grades and both sexes, supported by four or five families, and of the most desultory kind. During nine years of schooling, I had just nine different teachers. Only one of them had any special influence on me, and that was Alexander H. Stephens, who afterward, as Governor of the State, as Representative in Congress, and as Vice-President of the Confederate States, received every honor that his State could confer on him. A poor boy, he received his collegiate education by the charity of a church society of women. He commenced life as a teacher, and for two years I had the privilege of being his pupil. His appearance at that time lives in my memory. He used to join with us in our ball-playing. I see him now in his shirt-sleeves, bat in hand, with his tall,

slender form, frail and thin to painful meagerness, and his pale, corpse-like face. How he would laugh and shake his gaunt sides when he made a good strike, and still more when we beat him! One thing about him is especially worthy of mention as influencing his pupils for good, his utter detestation of lying, deceit, and meanness of every kind. He never encouraged tale-bearing, but always openly reproved it. I remember that once my brother Lewis thrashed a boy of his own size severely, and was caught in the act by the teacher. Both boys were, of course, brought up for trial; but when my brother told the reason why he beat the other boy, viz., that he had called him a liar, Stephens promptly dismissed the case, with the remark that Lewis was perfectly right. Thus he cultivated in his scholars the sense of self-respect and honor; in our case only emphasizing the influence which we got at home.

        Since those early days, I have frequently met Mr. Stephens, sometimes in Georgia, sometimes in South Carolina, and sometimes in Washington, and in all these places, both before and after the war between the States, I never met him but he referred with pleasure to the school days in Liberty. He had the most profound

admiration for my father. Indeed my father's personality was a revelation to him. He had never seen nor conceived of anything like it before. He always said that association with him had profoundly influenced his own character and career.

        The school course in those days was extremely simple. Beyond the "three R's," it was simply Greek, through Xenophon; Latin through Livy; and mathematics, through algebra and geometry. I took pleasure in all these, but especially in the mathematics. The schoolhouse (a mere rough board shanty, put up by the planters interested) was small, and consisted of but one room. The big boys, those of twelve years and upward, were allowed in pleasant weather to study out of doors, under the trees or in the broom-grass, according to the temperature. Study, therefore, was wholly without oversight, but I think none the less faithful on that account. Education being along few lines, advanced rapidly, and I was already well prepared for the freshman class of college at fourteen years. But my father thought that I was too young to leave home; so I spent another year in reviewing all my Latin, Greek, and mathematics, and entered college at fifteen.

        The different plantations interested in the school were far apart, the extremes being at least three miles. We boys and one sister had to walk about a mile and a half. We took with us a cold dinner in a tin bucket, therefore; and a negro boy always accompanied us to carry the bucket, and to wait on us at school, if necessary. The negro boy always considered it a great honor to be selected from among the five or six about the yard, whose business it was to cut up wood for the house and the kitchen and to wait on the cook. This attendance of a servant at school was considered by the other scholars as a rather "swell" proceeding, and our family was unique in this regard. There was really little or no service rendered, however, the boy being rather a companion in our sports, and usually a great favorite with all the scholars. School continued from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon, with an interval of an hour at noon for lunch and games. In the long days of May, just before moving to the summer retreat, Jonesville, we boys would hurry home, in order to enjoy a little gunning or fishing or swimming before supper.

        I might give many details of these school days in Liberty that it seems to me could be

made as interesting as Mr. Hughes's account of Tom Brown's school-days at Rugby. I will give only one incident, showing the moral tone of the school. It was supported mainly by three families, the Le Contes, the Joneses, and the Varnedoes; but a gentleman living at Riceboro, about a mile distant, asked the privilege of sending his boy, Rush, to it. Rush was a handsome, bright boy of about twelve, in dress almost a dandy in comparison with the rest of us. He had been at other schools, where he had learned some bad words and ways. At first he was on his good behavior, and we all liked him, but gradually he began to use bad language in the presence of the girls. Finally, they determined to punish him. The boys entered into the conspiracy so far as to agree to throw him down on his face, and then to deliver him over to the girls. After we had thrown him, a very strong and heavy girl laid her weight across his shoulders, and my sister Anne laid the switch on him well, until in the struggle, he got hold of the hand of the girl lying across his shoulders and bit it severely, and it all ended in a good cry on both sides. But it cured Rush effectually of his bad habits, and he became a great favorite. Soon after this

the school broke up, to reassemble at Jonesville, and we saw no more of Rush. This was about 1835. In 1863, eighteen years afterward, when Rush was a graduate of West Point and a lieutenant in the Confederate army, my sister met him again, and they talked of the occurrence, he, of course, bringing up the subject. On this occasion he showed his manliness by acknowledging his fault, and thanking her for the punishment. It taught him a lesson, he said, that he had never forgotten.

        I finished my schooling in December, 1837, and was ready to go to college. Up to that time Lewis and I had never been farther from the plantation home than Midway church, eight miles. Up to that time we had never worn any other than boy's clothes - i. e., round jacket, limp, open collar, soft cap, and often even bare feet. Now we had to put on the toga virilis: swallow-tailed coat, stiff stock, and beaver hat. It is easy to imagine how queer we looked, and how awkward we felt when we put them on the first time to go to church. We could not look at one another without bursting out with laughter. In these days the change is gradual, but then it was as sudden and complete as the metamorphosis of a chrysalis to a butterfly.

        On the ninth day of January, 1838, the very day set for us to leave for college, my father died, after a short illness from blood-poisoning, and in the prime of life, being but fifty-five years and five months old. This delayed our departure a week.

        The death of my father simply stunned me - I was dazed; I could not realize it. I remember well that as a child I sometimes lay awake at night thinking of death, not so much of my own as of that of those I loved. It seemed to me that I might possibly be able to bear that of brother or sister, but my father's possible death filled me with terror. I simply shut it out of my mind as a thing I could not, I must not, think about. And now the thing I most dreaded had come to pass. He died about four in the afternoon. All the next day I wandered alone in the beautiful, beloved garden in a state of stupor, of mental paralysis. He was buried in Midway churchyard by the side of the wife he loved so devotedly. I have already alluded to the sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Axson and the tribute to his character.

CHAPTER II
COLLEGE LIFE; CHOICE OF A PROFESSION;
FIRST LOVE

        We took stage from Savannah to Augusta, one hundred and twenty miles. There was but

one passenger besides ourselves, a well-dressed, courteous, educated gentleman, returning home from a visit to Savannah. He had a bottle of brandy along, which he too often used. He was evidently very drunk, and became more and more maudlin as we went on. He talked incessantly of his wife, and of how good a woman she was - much too good for him; and as he approached his house, began to shed tears. Finally, about a mile from his destination, he declared he could not go home; he could not bear that his wife should see him in his present condition. He stopped the stage, bade us good-by with many warnings against the vice that had enslaved him, and got off at a wayside inn.

        I mention this only to say how it affected me; instead of amusing me, as it might some, it made me inexpressibly sad. I had never seen a drunken white man before. I had seen two or three drunken negroes, and had associated drunkenness with the lowest characters, so to see a respectable man debase himself thus was to me awfully tragic.

        Another incident may be worth mention. As we approached Athens, belated students began to drop into the stage. Belated students are not apt to be good students; some of these were

among the worst elements in college. Seeing at a glance that we, Lewis and I, were "greenhorns," they took delight in astonishing us with ribald jests and obscene songs. I was not at all amused, but simply disgusted. I may add here, that for me the so-called dangers of college life never existed. I saw much of vicious conduct among students, of course, but whether such example injures or not, depends entirely upon inheritance and early training. For myself, I never felt the least temptation to join in vicious courses, nor have I ever been enticed by others to join in such courses. College students are not so bad as some seem to think. They never deliberately try to lead any one astray. They simply seek congenial association. Indeed I believe that college is the safest of all places for young men. It is impossible always to remain in the bomb-proof of home. One must go out into the world and fight the battle of life. Now, college young men are a picked set, far better and safer than the average.

        I repeat, therefore, that I had no temptations in college worth speaking of. In fact, from early training, and especially perhaps from an instinct of possible danger, I avoided

many things then which I afterward freely practised. For example, during my whole college course I never touched a card, but I have used them ever since in my family as an innocent source of amusement. Again, during my whole college course I never touched intoxicating drinks of any kind. Now I use wine on my table every day, and never forbid it to my children if they desire it. Instead of sowing any wild oats and reforming afterward, I have steadily become more and more liberal in my thoughts and feelings about such things. This is, I believe, as it ought to be. Vice is mere weakness; evil consists in mere abuse; but in early life strength is not yet acquired. Rational use is not easy, and therefore had better not be attempted, except under the shelter of the home roof.

        Brought up in the country and never having wandered farther than eight miles from the family hearthstone, when I arrived at college my thoughts reverted with force to the old home and its surroundings, and for several months I suffered severely from nostalgia. My yearning for the old plantation and the beautiful garden was intense. It was during this time that I received letters from my eldest

brother William that distressed me beyond measure. One of the noblest of men, since my father's death he had been my guardian, in loco parentis, and was very dear to me. He was a thoroughly religious man, and, of course, of the old orthodox type. He felt deeply the duty of improving the sad occasion of my father's death to urge upon me the absolute necessity of "fleeing from the wrath to come," and now! now! He alluded with distress and doubt to my father's dying outside the pale of the church. I have one letter yet. It distressed me greatly then; it distresses me to read it now, but for very different reasons; then, because it brought vividly before me the dread hereafter; now, because of the mistaken narrowness of a good man. I appreciate the intense affection, but recognize now the mistaken method. The affection was all his own; the mistaken method belonged to the time, not the man. My brother was one of the strongest, most practical, most rational and level-headed men I ever knew.

        During a religious revival in the churches, when I was in the junior class, Lewis and I, with a large number of other students, joined the church. Our church at Midway, Liberty County, was Puritan-Congregationalist. There

was no church of that kind at Athens. The nearest to it in faith was the Presbyterian. My friends did not think it well to wait until we returned to Liberty; the Presbyterian was good enough. Thus it was that I became a Presbyterian instead of a Congregationalist. Indeed the history of our family was peculiar in this regard. My ancestors were, of course, Huguenots by blood and faith. In early colonial times, the Huguenot church in New York became at one time so weak financially, that it was compelled to save itself from extinction by putting itself under the protection of the English Colonial Government, and became Episcopal. It so remained ever after in New York. The old Huguenot church, in which are registered the births, deaths, and marriages of my ancestors back to the original Guillaume, the "Église de St. Esprit," is still a French Episcopal church. On coming to Georgia, where there was no Episcopal church, my father attended regularly the Congregational church at Midway, of which my mother was a member, and of which my elder brother and sister also became members. My father never connected himself with the church, although all the children were baptized there. Circumstances, already mentioned, connected

Lewis and me with the Presbyterian. It is not strange, then, that with such a family history I care little for denominational differences. Of my own children, one is a Presbyterian, two are Episcopalians, and one not a member of any church, and that one is as good, for all I can see, as any of them.

        This revival, and my union with the church, was undoubtedly a very great crisis in my life. If there ever was a case of sudden, almost miraculous conversion, mine was one. I passed through all the stages described in such cases - a period of great distress, of earnest prayer, of exercise of faith, followed by a sudden sense of acceptance, an intense ecstatic joy for deliverance, and a trust in and love of the Deliverer. The sense of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man was vivid and full of delight. Life took on a new and glorious significance. All men became dearer to me, and even nature assumed a new and more beautiful appearance. Literally there was a new heaven and a new earth. The sky was never before so blue, the clouds so grandly massy and white, the grass so freshly green, nor the stars so bright. The sense of joy was so great that my heart seemed to swell almost to bursting.

        But the real permanent change was a sense of deliverance from the bondage of the fear of death and the hereafter, which, under the spell of the old orthodoxy, had always, in thoughtful moments, oppressed me. My spirit was set free. I was now the child of God and the brother of Jesus. I had now a really noble object in life, an ideal to be sought, an evil to be fought against. This I have never lost. It has been the most powerful element in the formation of character and the determination of conduct. However much I may have changed my opinion as to the miraculousness of the process, this change of relation toward the spiritual world has remained as an eternal heritage. Delusion! some will say. No, it was the old fear that was the delusion. The change was not the establishing of a new relation, but the discovery of the true relation which existed.

        After my connection with the church and during my winter vacations of two and a half months, my brother William often talked to me very earnestly of my possible duty, "if I felt called," to become a minister of the Gospel. Indeed many of my friends to this day think that I have missed my calling, that I ought to have been a preacher. At that time I did think very

seriously of it, but my scientific tastes prevailed, and carried me toward medicine instead; and I have never regretted it. One may be a preacher of righteousness in more ways than one.

        Among the educating influences of college life, I must not omit the literary societies. Fraternities, such as now exist, there were none at that time, but only semi-secret societies for literary exercises and for debates. There were, of course, two rival societies, called respectively "Demosthenian" and "Phi Kappa," to one or the other of which all the students belonged. I was a Phi Kappa. I have seen nothing in colleges since that time at all equal to these. The interest in them was so great that Saturday, a holiday in college exercises, was often entirely consumed in debates; and when the question was a living one, I have known the debates to continue until midnight. They were an excellent training for public life, and were therefore encouraged by the faculty and stimulated by allowing the two societies to choose one-half of the eight junior orators, i. e., two by each society, for commencement exhibition. The best results of these societies I never attained. I was too young and sensitive, too easily embarrassed to make a good debater. Even to this day I am

not a ready speaker, although I have spoken so much; even now I must elaborately prepare. My brother Lewis, on the contrary, though far less distinguished in the classes, was a very fearless and successful debater.

        Games and gymnasiums as a regular part of college work, and hence regular organizations of students for athletics, were unknown at that time. Athletics and games there were indeed a plenty, but as purely spontaneous expressions of abounding vitality. I was light, active, and fleet of foot, and became very expert in gymnastics and as a player of town-ball, for baseball and cricket had not yet evolved.

        To me, at this time, a most important means of culture was the society of ladies. The ladies of Athens were celebrated for their beauty and refinement, and it was the habit of the students to cultivate the acquaintance of the ladies of the families of the faculty and of other families in the town. Refined women were to me then, and I confess to something of the same feeling yet, a sort of superior beings, belonging to another, higher, and purer sphere of existence. I simply worshiped them. Association with them produced in me a delicious delirium, an ecstatic joy and exaltation. I have much of the same

feeling yet, although moderated and purged of its extravagance by experience. In these days it has become the fashion to ridicule this romantic feeling toward women, but there can be no doubt it is the greatest of all safeguards of the purity of young men.

        I never had any great ambition to excel my fellows in the classes. I was, moreover, too young to appreciate the highest motives of study. There were, therefore, only two motives that determined such diligence as I showed - viz., a desire to please my instructors and a real taste in the subject of study. This latter was the main motive in mathematics, mechanics, and physics, and, in the last year, in mental and moral philosophy. The subjects of my addresses as junior orator in 1840, and again as senior orator in 1841, on the occasion of my graduation, of which I remember little except their extreme immaturity, show this double tendency of my mind toward science and moral philosophy. The title of the one was True Greatness, which I took to be mainly moral worth; of the other, Love of Truth, the Highest Incentive to Effort. Both of these I burned many years ago in disgust at their almost childish crudity and immaturity. I wish now I had

preserved them. We grow more tolerant as we grow older. The fact is, my ability to write anything of any value came very late. I never was, and am not now, a facile writer. For me, a written production of any kind is literally a piece of thought work. It is not, however, a manufactured article, but a child of the brain. It is not made, but born - born of much labor and with many throes. Of course, therefore, I never could write until I had independent thoughts of my own. The skilful putting together of the commonplaces of literature into a brilliant patchwork is a thing I could never do.

        The natural history sciences, which the example of my father had made my first love, were almost wholly neglected during my college course, because this side of science was the most feebly represented in the faculty. I only returned to it through the study of medicine, much later.

        There was but one man in the faculty who was in any way remarkable, and whose personality strongly impressed me - viz., Charles F. McCay. He was an excellent mathematician and mechanician, and well versed also in physics. He was the most skilful oral examiner I ever knew: his Socratic method of drawing

out knowledge or of exposing ignorance was really marvelous; I have never known anything like it. I was afterward, from 1853 to 1857, associated with him as colleague, and became very intimately acquainted with him, and learned to admire him.

        My college life was uneventful. I was, indeed, full of life and spirit, and enjoyed my college days to the full; but I have no college pranks to relate. I had little fancy for such, because I did not regard them as indicative of spirit and courage. One single incident I mention.

        It was my last year in college. I was preparing for my part in the commencement exercises, although I was then only eighteen - a mere slender slip of a boy. My brother Lewis, then twenty, was in love with a young lady, the one he afterward married. A young man, P-, was also in love with the same girl. One evening about 9 P. M., Lewis and I were passing the college dormitory, each with a lady on his arm; Lewis, of course, with his lady-love. While passing, I heard some noise in the building, but took no notice of it. Lewis's jealous ear, however, detected some taunt, which he regarded as an insult to the ladies, and he recognized the window

from which it came. He said nothing to any one, not even to me, about it, but next morning accused P- of the insult, and instantly attacked him. P- was a powerful man, and gave Lewis a pretty severe pommeling.

        I was away at the time, like Demosthenes practising my speech in solitude. When I came back I found Lewis with his eye bandaged, and bathing it with a cooling lotion; and then for the first time learned the facts. I determined at once that I too would fight. I was perfectly sure that I would be badly beaten; but no matter, it had to be done. I went to P-'s room, but he was absent. I waited for him in the room of a friend just opposite, across the passage, but said nothing to the friend. When P- returned, I knocked at his door and entered. As soon as I opened the door, he advanced rapidly toward me. I fully expected to be knocked down; but to my surprise P- said that he was glad that I had come, for he wished to apologize; that he had intended to apologize to Lewis, but he had attacked him so suddenly and violently that he had had no time. He confessed that he was heartily ashamed of himself. I was intensely relieved, although I did not tell him so. On the contrary, I gave him

a piece of my mind, which to his credit he took with great meekness.

        The long winter vacations of two and a half months we always spent on the plantation or else at Cedar Hill, my brother's place. I enjoyed these vacations immensely, renewing all the sports of my boyhood, hunting, fishing, boating, etc. It was in my last year at college, immediately after returning from my last vacation, that I heard by letter of the death of my brother William, on the twenty-fifth day of January, 1841, just three weeks after I had left him. This was the second great affliction I had suffered by death. My brother was my guardian, and a very noble man whom I loved dearly. He had been in bad health for some months. Liberty County was very malarious; and in spite of the summer retreats, the planters suffered more or less from fevers. The summer of 1840 had been more than usually sickly, and when I came down in November, I found William in a very bad condition. He was well aware of the uncertainty of his life, and often talked to me calmly and even cheerfully of the probability of his early death, for he was then but twenty-eight. The only thing that distressed him, he said, was leaving his wife and

children. These talks deeply impressed me at the time, but I could not fully realize their significance, because he was cheerful and his strength was still considerable. Only a few days before I left for college he took a walk of three miles with me without fatigue. The news of his death came, therefore, as a terrible shock from which I recovered but slowly. But youth, absence from the scene of grief, diversion of constant duties of study - under these conditions sorrow can not last very long. But the happy vacations at Cedar Hill, the home of my brother, and with my sister in the old plantation house! Should I ever know such things again?

        I have spoken all along of my scientific tastes inherited from my father, and enforced by his example, but have said nothing of the development of the esthetic side of my nature. As already said, my mother was passionately fond of music. How much I inherited from her, I know not; but from early childhood my delight in music was simply inconceivable. My brother William, himself a flutist, observing this, bought me a fife, on which I practised incessantly; but lest it should annoy others, I practised alone, and usually in the beloved garden.

In a year or two I became an excellent performer. I remember well that a neighbor, whose taste, however, was not cultivated, used to say, that in his opinion, even in my best days of flute-playing, I never made as good music as I did in boyhood on the fife. After a few years my brother bought me a flute, on which I played much and quite skilfully all the time I was in college and afterward, until I went to study medicine in New York.

        In New York I bought me a fine eight-keyed flute, which I continued to use until I was nearly fifty, when I quit playing altogether. Although this is anticipating, I may say that my enjoyment of my own flute music in early manhood was intense, especially when playing entirely alone. I never had, nor cared to have, the brilliant execution of some, but for sweetness of tone and passionate depth of feeling, I think I was seldom excelled. I kept up my music many, very many years after my marriage, especially as an accompaniment to my wife's piano and songs, but gradually played less and less, until finally I dropped it entirely, when I was about forty-eight. There were several reasons for this. My taste in music was going ever forward, while my power of performance, for want

of time to practise, was going ever backward, until they were so far separated that I could no longer please myself, and dropped it in disgust. In early life, moreover, my greatest passion was for simple melody, of which the flute is an admirable expression; but as I grew older I more and more enjoyed complex harmony, which, of course, can not be rendered on the flute. I enjoyed my wife's piano more than I did my flute, and took more delight in listening than in performing.

        My love of poetry was far less advanced. The first beginning of it was while in college, and strange to say, showed itself in regard for two poets as wide apart as possible - Milton and Burns. My musical taste drew me toward Milton, my love of nature toward Burns; but my real fondness for literature and art came much later, as I shall describe in the proper place.

        Lewis and I graduated in August, 1841. I was eighteen and five months, and Lewis a little more than two years older. It so happened that my sister Anne, two years younger than I, graduated from the Macon Female College, the first female collegiate institution in the United States, about the same time. It was arranged

(Anne's idea entirely) that we three should make a tour through the Northern States, visiting all the great cities. Anne joined us in Athens, and we started at once.

        This tour was a great event for all of us. We went first to the national capital, Washington, and put up at the best hotel. Anne was determined to go in style. Now, Lewis and I would, of course, have taken our meals at the table d'hôte like other plain people, but Anne wouldn't hear to it. It was much grander to have a private parlor, and take our meals there. I think, also, that with woman's keener instinct, she was sensitive about our exceeding greenness; for after several weeks of travel, we gave up this expensive habit.

        To our inexperience, the Capitol, the presidential mansion, the buildings of the several Departments, the Washington monument, not then finished, etc., were wonders of architectural magnificence. We attended, of course, the meetings of Congress, and not only saw the celebrated trio, Webster, Calhoun, and Clay, but heard them speak. We also visited Mount Vernon, the home of Washington. After a week at the capital, we continued our journey, staying a few days at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston,

and Cambridge, visiting, of course, everything that was most worth seeing; and returned to New York to spend a month or more there. My sister Jane, and her husband, Dr. Harden, and their two children, were also on a visit to New York. My brother John had graduated as Doctor of Medicine, in April, and had just married Eleanor Josephine Graham, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. He and his beautiful bride were still in New York, waiting to go South in November. Our whole family, therefore, except my brother William's widow and her children, were here gathered in New York. My uncle, John Eatton Le Conte, the distinguished naturalist, with his afterward still more distinguished son, John Lawrence Le Conte, then only sixteen, was living at that time at 46 Walker Street, New York; and John and his bride stayed with him, while the rest of us boarded near by. All of us spent every evening at "Uncle Jack's" house, and a very happy six weeks we passed under these delightful conditions.

        Early in November we took regretful leave of our dear old uncle and went South, and for some weeks all of us stayed with my sister Jane at the old plantation, Woodmanston.

        About a week after our return my brother William's widow came down from Macon, and brought with her her brother, John T. Nisbet, a young man of my own age. We became fast friends and were soon inseparable. There were at least a dozen houses in Liberty where I was welcome to stay as long as I liked - the longer the better - and "John T." always went with me. We had grand times that winter, duck-shooting, deer-hunting, riding on horseback with the ladies, etc.

        In the spring all of us went to Macon and remained some weeks. In June John and his wife, Lewis, and I went to Athens and organized a trip for the mountains. There were eight in the party, four of us and four of the Nisbets, and we filled two carriages. Our route was from Athens to Gainesville, Nacooche Valley, Yonah Mountain, Clarkesville, Tallulah Falls, Toccoa Falls, and back to Athens. I had previously been over the ground during a college vacation, but enjoyed it more in the gay company. But, as will be seen, I enjoyed it still more in later excursions.

        On our return to Athens the party broke up and scattered, John going to New York with his wife, Lewis to Cambridge to attend the Harvard

Law School, and I to Macon to begin the study of medicine under Dr. Charles West. Here, save for a few weeks at Columbus and Merriwether Springs in August, I remained until I went down to the plantation for the winter in November.

        My brother John having settled at Savannah and commenced the practise of medicine, I nominally continued my studies under him. But precious little study I did that winter! My cousin John L. Le Conte, then eighteen, came South and spent several months with me at the old homestead. We had a delightful winter, riding, boating, duck-shooting, etc. But John never became really expert at any of these as he had begun too late.

        While John was with us, I think in April, the great comet of 1843 appeared flaming in the sky. With the single exception of that of 1858, this was the largest comet I ever saw. The tail was like the path of a great search-light, reaching from the horizon to the zenith. As I was always a lover of the starry dome, this wonderful straight band flaming in the sky interested me profoundly.

        After John had left us, in June, I rode with a companion to the Altamaha River and back, a

distance of thirty miles, to gather the plants and river shells for which the region is so celebrated. To escape the heat of the day and to have as much time as possible at the gathering ground, we started before sunrise. I can never forget the delight of that early morning ride. The cool, moist morning air was loaded with the fragrance of the Magnolia glauca, which as we neared a swamp could be smelt a mile away. As we approached the Altamaha, the ponds were covered with the broad leaves and the beautiful yellow blossoms of the Nelumbium, which I had never seen before. In addition to plants we gathered a great number of river shells, especially of the Maio spinosus, with its needle-like spines an inch and a half long, a shell that is found nowhere else in the world.

        During the winter my sister Anne became engaged to Dr. J. P. Stevens, a very worthy and cultivated man and a successful physician in Liberty County. In June, 1843, they were married, and as Anne wanted to have a grand wedding, on the shortest possible notice of four days I went into Savannah and ordered everything - cakes, fruits in abundance, about a ton of ice - and got it all to Jonesville on the day of the wedding. I had invited "John T." to come

down, and he also arrived the same day. I was up all that night; for after the wedding I went out serenading all the girls of Jonesville and the visitors at the wedding, and got back to my bed at the family home in Jonesville just as the sun was rising.

        "John T." took me back with him to Macon, and then over to Midway, to the home of his elder brother, Mr. Alfred Nisbet. Here for the first time I met a young girl of fifteen, Miss Caroline Elizabeth Nisbet, who later became my wife. Ah, the boundless hospitality of those times! Alfred Nisbet and his wife and family of five children, all nearly grown, lived really bountifully on his salary of two thousand dollars a year, and entertained five of us with no thought of limiting our stay. We had a continual round of entertainments, musicales, and evening parties, at which all the young people of the village were present. The center of all this gaiety was the bright-eyed, winsome Miss Bessie. But I remained heart-whole. She was only fifteen, and from the advanced age of twenty I never thought of her except as a child.

        Lewis returned from Harvard in June, and immediately after married Miss Bessie's cousin, Miss Harriet Nisbet, of Athens. My sister and

I went to Athens to attend the wedding and remained for a week or so afterward at the hotel. The landlord's daughter was a sweet-looking girl with gentle, winning manners, and beautiful blonde complexion. She played finely on the harp, an instrument that, as she evidently knew, was well adapted to show off the graceful movements of her exquisitely molded arms and soft little hands. Every evening I asked her to play; and I must confess that those beautiful arms and graceful fingers, those golden ringlets and sapphire blue eyes did make some impression on my too susceptible heart - the very first that I had ever felt. The evenings were becoming dangerously delightful, when, fortunately for me, it became necessary for me to leave, as I had to begin my medical studies in New York. I was sad and melancholy for a long time afterward; I went to Macon, but I did not get over it; I went down to Liberty for a few weeks but still I did not get over it, though the girls made much of me and kept me going all the time; I went on to New York and stayed with good old "Uncle Jack," and still it was some time before I could feel wholly free again.

        But ere long I was to learn that it was not real love.

CHAPTER III
MEDICAL STUDY IN NEW YORK; TRIP THROUGH THE NORTHWEST

        I took advantage of every opportunity offered, attending the hospitals on the occasions of operations, joining the quiz class when there was one, and taking a coach, Dr. Lewis Sayre, then a very promising young surgeon. I also took charity patients and thus had a little practise,

under the advice, when necessary, of the professors. Of course I took dissection, and found it strangely fascinating, the very horror of the thing adding greatly to the fascination.

        Such was my work all winter and spring, a regular cram; monotonous enough, but yet interesting to me, especially the more scientific part of the curriculum, such as physiology, anatomy, pathology, and chemistry. As most of the students were imperfectly educated, the fact that I was a Bachelor of Arts was a fine plume in my cap.

        The summer of 1844 was an eventful one for me, and I believe of great importance in my development. About the middle of May, when we were through with our spring courses, my cousin, John Lawrence Le Conte, and I started on a summer trip westward. We knew not and cared little where we would fetch up, being intent only on having a good time. If we had known our course, we certainly would have carried a very different kind of luggage, for we were afterward greatly hampered by our trunks.

        We went first to Niagara, stopping two days at Syracuse in order to examine the salt-works there. At Niagara we stayed a week, visiting everything that was to be seen, and enjoyed it

immensely. "John L.," although at this time only nineteen, was already an enthusiastic student and collector of insects, especially beetles, and had with him all the apparatus for collecting, preserving, etc. He had inherited this taste from his father, who had been all his life almost equally distinguished in all departments of zoology and botany. But recently he had specialized more and more on insects, especially coleopters, and of these he had the finest collection in the United States. John inherited his father's versatility, but like his father, and in much greater degree, specialized on coleopters, and became, as is well known, the most distinguished coleopterist in the country. I was myself a keen observer of nature, but not a specialist nor a collector in any department. I was interested in John's pursuits, however, and collected for him whenever I could without interference with what I regarded as higher pleasures. For myself, I could think of nothing here but Niagara, and could not help poking fun at John for his greater delight in a new species than in the grandeur of Niagara.

        From Niagara we went to Buffalo, then a small town, and onward to Detroit, which then had a population of some eight thousand.

Here we stayed a week and saw a good deal of pleasant society, through the good offices of some ladies, whom we had met in New York, and who, moreover, were distant relatives of ours through a common ancestor, Eatton. Among the pleasant acquaintances met here was the Rev. Bishop McCoskey, a fine military looking man, a fit soldier in the church militant, with whom we dined several times, and who gave us letters to the officers at Fort Mackinac. While at Detroit, we visited Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, then a very small affair. The best thing they had was a rather fine collection of minerals.

        At Detroit, through representations made us by friends, we took a sudden notion to go to the Lake Superior country, and determined, if possible, to go on northwest as far as we could. We took, therefore, the regular steamer, which passed through Lake Huron, the Straits of Mackinac, and southward by Lake Michigan to Chicago, then a thriving town of five thousand. The steamer did not stop at Mackinac, but put us ashore in a boat at 4 A. M., and went on, leaving us shivering there. I shall never forget that landing on a bleak sand beach, with not a soul in sight. What are these strange-looking

canoes lying bottom upward on the beach? We soon recognized them as birch-bark Indian canoes. We had read of them and had seen pictures of them, but had never before seen one. While walking about them, admiring their graceful forms, we tapped on one with our knuckles - such a discordant concert of remonstrant voices, males growling, females shrieking, and children piping, arose from beneath! We precipitately retreated, each laughing at the other for being so startled. Beneath each canoe was a whole family of Indians sleeping! After a little we found some who were awake, and guided us to the only lodging-house, a poor miserable tumble-down shanty of rough boards. The proprietor, a great fat, lazy, tumble-down man himself, showed us to a really clean, tidy room, and soon asked us to a breakfast fit for a king: the most delicious broiled whitefish, steak, and fragrant coffee. I learned afterward that Lasly was celebrated far and near for his excellent table.

        After breakfast, we went up to the fort, and delivered our letters. We were treated with great courtesy by the officers, especially Captain Scott and Dr. Holden. Captain Scott, the celebrated hunter of that time, was an interesting

man, with strong, alert, athletic figure, bright, eager, keen gray eyes, and ruddy face, bronzed by long exposure. He was a great disciplinarian, and the fort was clean and orderly in the extreme. A famous hunter, his house was full both of the implements and the spoils of the chase. All kinds of weapons he showed us; guns and pistols, swords and daggers, bows and arrows, slings and crossbows, in the use of all of which he was equally expert. Every "coign of vantage" was adorned with elk-horns and buffalo-heads and grinning jaws of panthers; before every door were rugs of bearskins and buffalo-robes. I was intensely interested in the story of his adventures, for I, too, had some reputation as a Nimrod; but such big game overwhelmed me.

        Dr. Holden carried us all over the island, and showed us all the remarkable sights, especially Arched Rock and Sugar Loaf Rock. Arched Rock is like a fragment of a great wall, forty feet high, which had been broken through, forming a grand archway, like the Washington Arch in New York. Sugar Loaf is a wonderful conical peak, about seventy feet high, and only twenty to thirty feet at the base. I was too ignorant to understand the origin of these remarkable

features, and I have never seen any explanation since; but upon reflection, I think now they were probably remnants of an old shore cliff, when the waters of the Great Lakes were higher than now. I asked Lasly about them: he lazily turned his quid of tobacco to the other side, and remarked, "Yes, they say that they're worth seeing, but for my part I'd rather see a dog-fight."

        I noticed, also, that the whole surface of the island is so thickly covered with drift cobbles that there is hardly soil enough to hold them together. This was the first time I was interested in geological phenomena.

        After four or five delightful days at Mackinac, we hired a canoe and two men to carry us to Sault Ste. Marie, distant one hundred miles. As we had to sleep out one night, we bought blankets and buffalo-robes, the finest of which at that time cost but a dollar. We started at 10 A. M. and went sixty miles, camping on a little island. The night was still and sultry, and the mosquitoes bad; but about midnight it blew up with some rain, and turned very cold. The men wanted to get back to Mackinac next day, so we got up at 3 A. M., cooked breakfast, and started. The wind was blowing a gale directly in our

faces, and it was freezing cold. I never suffered more from cold in my life; we drew our blankets close around us, but the wind seemed to pass through them as if they were gauze. We reached Sault Ste. Marie about 9 A. M., and John and I walked up to town with our blankets wrapped about us, presenting a very stately appearance, and exciting the admiration of several Indian matrons, similarly dressed, minus the coat and trousers.

        We delivered our letters from Captain Scott to Captain Johnson, and were cordially received, messing with the officers and having a jolly good time. We amused ourselves here watching the skill and dexterity of the Indians in running up and down the rapids in their beautiful, but frail, canoes. Here we fell in with Colonel Gratiot, who, with a lieutenant, Hempstead, like himself from St. Louis, and ten expert Cornish copper miners, was on his way to Keweenaw Point to develop the copper mines there. We were invited to join the party, and gladly accepted. The lands had only that summer been opened by the United States to miners, and thus it came to pass that I was one of the first party that commenced operations in these now celebrated mines.

        After staying two or three days at the Sault, we took ship with Captain Stannard, and after two days' sail, landed at Eagle Harbor, while he went on to La Pointe.

        Eagle Harbor is a beautiful landlocked bay, on the north shore of Keweenaw Point, about two miles long and half a mile wide. We pitched our tent at the west end of the bay, where there was a beautiful level sand beach, and camped here about three weeks; and a most delightful three weeks we found it. We sometimes amused ourselves by rambling along the shores of the Great Lake, collecting the most beautiful agates; sometimes by rowing on the harbor in a little rowboat belonging to Gratiot; sometimes by shooting grouse and squirrels with Hempstead's gun; sometimes by swimming in the clear, wine-colored waters of the little stream.

        John was in ecstasies over this place as a collecting ground for insects. Every morning the beach was black with insects cast up by the waves over night. He gathered here in a few weeks as many species as he could find in as many years roaming over the country. Insects essaying to fly over the lake were beaten down by the winds, drowned, and washed up by the

waves here; or else insects crawling near the water were carried away by waves and washed up. The little stream which entered the harbor near our camp, moreover, brought floating leaves and trash, and with them, insects to the bay, and these also were cast up on the beach. As might be supposed, the insects were mostly ants and beetles. I often afterward used this as an illustration of the manner in which strata black with fossil insects are formed.

        We lived bountifully while here, for the lake teemed with the most delicious whitefish, and the little river was full of trout. I had the best opportunity of comparing these two delicacies. After long hesitation, I gave the palm to the whitefish. But it must be Lake Superior whitefish. We varied our diet with an occasional grouse, and frequent squirrels.

        I stayed here, as said, three weeks. Of course a settlement had to be made for the miners. Indeed, a town, or perhaps a city, had to be founded. The party commenced building log huts, and I took my ax and helped, thus becoming one of the founders of the city of Eagle Harbor. Just ten years after this - i. e., in the summer of 1854, while I was professor of geology in the University of Georgia - I received

a letter from Eagle Harbor, asking the exact date of our arrival and the date of the completion of the first log cabin. As I had kept a journal, I easily furnished the desired information. What was the motive of the letter, whether a decennial celebration or whether a legal question of claim, I never knew.

        The forests here were a dense growth of tamarack, larch, birch, etc. In pushing through this tangled mass, which in some places was almost impossible, I would sometimes come on a prostrate log of birch, two feet in diameter and apparently perfectly sound; but when I stepped on it, I would break through up to the knee. The whole of the wood was gone, and only the hollow bark left. I have many times used this in illustration of the hollow sigillaria trees of the coal, for in these, also, the bark was the most imperishable part.

        This kind of life was, of course, hard on trousers. John's were becoming disreputable - they had to be patched. We had nothing but strong bedticking; John covered his whole seat with a patch nearly a foot square. It is easy to imagine his picturesque appearance.

        On the 3d of July, we regretfully left our delightful camp and our friends in Eagle Harbor,

and took ship again with Captain Stannard on his next trip westward. The glorious Fourth we spent on shipboard, and, therefore, without the usual celebration. I got up early on the fifth, and witnessed the most beautiful mirage I ever saw. I was watching the forests as we approached La Pointe, and made some remark. "That is not the shore that you see," said the captain; "it is only the loom." As we approached, the land and the trees on it became more distinct, and their reflection in the glassy surface of the lake came in view. As we still approached, the whole appearance rose higher and the real tree-tops appeared interlocked, as it were, with the inverted trees of the phantom. Gradually the phantom rose higher and higher, till it disappeared, leaving only the real. At one time in this gradual transition there were four repetitions of the forest, viz., the phantom forest and its reflection, and the real forest and its reflection. In explanation, I suppose there was a cold dense layer of air on the water, for the lake is very cold, and the greater refraction of this layer caused the phenomenon. I have often seen it under similar conditions, but never before or since so finely displayed.

        At La Pointe we took rooms at the house of Mr. Oakes, the Indian agent. There were two or three hundred Indians on the island, but only two white men; Mr. Oakes, who had married a half-breed Indian woman, and had two rather pretty quadroon daughters of seventeen or eighteen; and Dr. Borup, the American Fur Company's agent, a Norwegian, and a really intelligent and cultivated gentleman.

        We stayed several days at La Pointe in order to make preparations for a long camping trip, and one of these was Sunday. In the forenoon we went to the Christian service; in the afternoon, to the pagan. I was interested in both, but especially in the latter. I observed, too, the same Indians attending with sober devoutness the one, and then with frenzied delight the other. Of this latter, which lasted some three hours, I give a brief description, though I never clearly understood what it was all about.

        The Indians had built a birch-bark lodge, seventy to eighty feet long, and thirty or forty feet wide. In the middle of this they had set up a post, painted with red stripes. This seemed to be a temporary representative of the

Great Spirit, Manitiongeh, for they always made obeisance to it in passing. It is impossible to describe the strange mixture of dancing, chanting, drum-beating, and rattle-shaking. It was apparently a ceremony of initiation of an old woman into a religious society. She sat on a number of blankets spread on the ground, about half-way between the painted post and the end of the lodge. The blankets were apparently the initiatory offerings. The audience sat about the walls all around. Five or six priests, or medicine-men, with medicine pouches in their hands, made of the skins of small animals, retaining the shape of the animal, and especially the head, marched continuously around the post, the woman chanting. All that I could distinguish were the words "Hay - Manitiongeh - Hay" repeated almost indefinitely. Every time the medicine-men passed around the woman, they presented the heads of the animal-bags toward her, with a "ho-ho-ho-ho," rapidly pronounced. Whenever this was done, she bowed her head toward the ground and trembled violently. Her agitation increased with every repetition, until finally she fell prostrate on her face, and was taken out in an insensible condition, and carried into a small separate

lodge. What occurred there was a religious secret. As soon as she returned revived, there commenced a general dance of the whole company, in which she joined with supernatural activity. Gradually religious excitement passed into frenzy, and frenzy into convulsions and insensibility, and in this condition she was again borne out.

        We stayed at La Pointe several days making the necessary arrangements for our long trip to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and thence to Fort Snelling. From there we expected to go up the Minnesota River, then called the St. Peter's. We therefore hired from Dr. Borup a large-sized birch-bark canoe and two men as guides and paddlers for forty days, and paid him at once. We had moccasins made, as it is not safe to wear boots or shoes in a birch-bark canoe, and laid in provisions - pork, flour, cheese, maple-sugar, crackers, tea, coffee, etc.

        When ready, we bade good-by to our friends, not forgetting the pretty quadroons, and walked down to the canoe. When my foot went over the side of the canoe, as I had forgotten about the moccasins, my ankle was seized - "No, no, not with shoes; must put on moccasins." The change was soon made, and

we embarked. We wore nothing but these moccasins on our feet for three weeks.

        I stop a moment to describe our canoe and guides. Our canoe was an ordinary birch-bark, now so familiar, but then new to me. Their lightness and grace, their paper-like thinness and frailty are well known. Ours was larger than usual, being about twenty-four feet long and three feet wide. Our guides were Robideau, a French Canadian and a famous voyageur, and François Salle, a half-breed French Indian. They spoke only the barest smattering of English, and their French was but little better, being a mixed patois. We, on the other hand, spoke almost no French, so that our communication was largely by signs, although we did manage to understand a little of their patois, and made them understand some of our bad French.

        We started about 8 A. M., July 8th. I can never forget the delight of that day's sail among the exquisitely beautiful Apostle Islands. Often we were completely surrounded by them and seemed to be in the midst of a little lake, with picturesque shores changing at every moment. The islands consisted of level red sandstone, with bold shores, crowned with heavy forests. We made a glorious camp our first night

out, among these islands, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

        Next morning we came out from among the islands, and skirted the south shore of the lake. Here the guides took us to see a great curiosity; the south shore of the lake is bordered by an almost perpendicular cliff of red sandstone fifty feet high, the heavy level beds of which have been eaten into and undermined by the waves, forming caves and arches, which tumble in from time to time, causing recession of the shore. At one place the waves had cut far under the cliff, and the overhanging table was supported by many gnarled columns of harder sandstone. The guides took the canoe more than a hundred yards under the sandstone table-rock, and we looked out through hundreds of columns on to the great lake. Above our heads there were fifty feet of sandstone, crowned with primeval forest. Through these gloomy corridors, among these great columns, and beneath these hollow arches, the waves dashed with a sound like thunder. It was wonderfully impressive of the power of waves as an erosive agent. I was even then convinced that all the Apostle Islands are but remnants of the same level sandstone, left by a similar process of erosion. These

phenomena have been described by others since that time, but I believe my own observations were the first, as also were the explanations given in my journal.

        We nooned that day near the mouth of the Bois Brulé River. The guides pointed it out to us as the way by which they would return from Fort Snelling. I thought nothing of it then; but long afterward learned by the investigations of the geologists of this region that this was an old outlet of Lake Superior into the Mississippi, through the St. Croix.

        In the afternoon we prevailed on our guides to take us across to the north shore, as we desired to see at least something of it also. After a little hesitation, they struck out with vigor, remarking that a sudden squall would be dangerous. The distance was about twenty-five miles; we went across in about four hours, and camped for the night on a beautiful pebble beach. Our guides began immediately to pitch our tent on a mass of pebbles, each one about the size of a walnut. We remonstrated, but they assured us that rounded pebbles make an excellent bed, and such indeed we found it. The smooth pebbles slide and roll over one another, and adjust themselves perfectly to the

form. It was the best bed surface we had yet found. Sand, on the contrary, though apparently soft and yielding, as every camper knows makes the worst possible bed.

        Next morning we paddled along the north shore of the lake, observing as we passed everything worthy of note, and drew up our canoe for nooning on a sand-spit stretching across the end of the lake and separating it from an estuary at the mouth of the St. Louis River, up which we were to go. This narrow sand-spit runs from the north shore for six or seven miles nearly to the south shore, where there is the only opening into the St. Louis. Just where we landed is the site now of the city of Duluth. At that time, and for many years afterward, there was not a white settlement within a hundred miles. While nooning here, I took a delicious swim in the warm waters of the estuary, right along the present water-front of Duluth.

        The glory of the voyage up the St. Louis River that afternoon will live forever in my memory. The day was warm and still, the river was wide and devious, the water smooth as a mirror, and the banks clothed in richest verdure. The Indian villages were strung all along the river at intervals. At every turn we would

come in view of a new cluster of lodges, and would be greeted with the peculiar shrill, vibratory halloo, characteristic of the Indian, made by vibrating the hand over the mouth. Every greeting would be answered by our men in a similar manner, and I too with some practise succeeded fairly well. We camped that night at Fond du Lac, an Indian village of two or three hundred, about ten miles up the river, where we found a single white man, a Mr. Boilleau.

        Next day we went to the Falls, the Dalles of the St. Louis, where there is a portage of nine miles. As this was a serious undertaking, we had to commence it in the early morning, and therefore camped here for the rest of the day. What a glorious swim I took in the roaring cataract that afternoon! Some twenty or thirty Indians, men and boys, had come from Fond du Lac to visit our camp. As I went down the cataract with railroad speed, they watched me with the greatest interest, cheering as I passed, and screaming with delight when I came out victorious. I bantered them to join me, but neither entreaty nor jeering would induce them to try. I went down repeatedly (walking up by land each time), leaping and playing in the roaring

torrent, laughing and screaming with delight.

        Next day began the serious business of the portage. I was greatly interested in the wonderful capacity of those men as beasts of burden; each had a leathern strap, about eighteen feet long and an inch wide, except in the middle, where it was three inches wide; this strap was tied about each end of my trunk by Robideau, and the trunk thrown over on the back, with the broad strap on the forehead. This was probably at least seventy-five pounds; on this a hundred pounds of pork was put, and on this again some twenty-five pounds of crackers, making in all at least two hundred pounds. With this he went off on a trot. François Salle did the same with John's trunk, and one hundred pounds of flour and other things, to make up two hundred pounds, and followed at the same gait. We knew we could not make more than six or seven miles, so we remained in camp until the afternoon. In about three-quarters of an hour, the men came back, loaded themselves again in the same manner, and went off; and we saw them no more until late in the afternoon.

        About four o'clock we started for our next

camp. This was our first experience in walking any considerable distance in moccasins. The trail was very rough and stony, and we winced and shrank at every step. We soon got used to it, however, or the ground became smoother, and we went along very well. About half-way we met the men returning for their last load, the canoe.

        On the way we observed how the portage was made. The whole distance was divided into stages about a mile apart. The first load was carried to the first stage and deposited, and the men returned to camp for the second load; this was carried two miles and deposited, then they returned to stage No. 1, and carried the load to No. 3, then back to No. 2, and carried that load to No. 4, etc., until all except the canoe had been deposited at the camp for the night.

        Then the men returned to our former camp, took up the canoe, one at each end, and carried it the seven miles to the new camp. It is seen then that they went over the ground five times, equaling thirty-five miles, and one-half the time each was loaded with two hundred pounds. It certainly was an extraordinary feat of strength and endurance; one that I do not believe

any other animal of similar size could possibly accomplish. The peculiarity of man in which he is superior to any other animal, is his capacity for training. Moreover, I believe that the white race is superior in this respect to any other race; and still more, that even in white men, good blood tells in this regard, as it does in horses. The great difference in men consists mainly in the capacity for improvement by training: some improve greatly and indefinitely; some hardly at all, and quickly reach their limit.

        Early next morning while we were eating our breakfast, a party of Indians, men, women, and children, passed our camp, making the same portage; but as they had little baggage they traveled fast, and we saw them no more. The men were stark naked, except for a narrow breech-cloth, that passed between the legs and under a belt around the waist; and carried nothing except their bows and arrows. The women were better clothed, indeed, but each was bowed beneath a heavy load. One of them carried the canoe on her head, bottom upward, like an immense scoop-bonnet. Soon after the Indians passed we left our camp, which was in the midst of a dense forest, on the margin of a beautiful

streamlet; and re-commenced our portage in the same style as yesterday. We easily finished the remaining three miles by noon, and embarked again.

        We had been told at La Pointe that we should find the mosquitoes very bad in some parts of the country passed over, and had made preparations accordingly. It was here that we began to feel these torments. We had indeed felt a few at Eagle Harbor, and at nearly all our camps on Lake Superior; but here they became intolerable. On this day, for the first time since we left Sault Ste. Marie, the sky was cloudy. Not only had we now mosquitoes all day, but also brulos. These are almost invisible black gnats, somewhat like the sand-fleas of the South, but still smaller and black;