mount into the air. The
man rode and looked as if not anticipating, and incapable of fearing
danger, carelessly glancing round, while the noble animal he bestrode,
as if he had caught the spirit of his rider, stepped high and
gallantly along. But in truth there was little or no danger, the white
settlers being, at the time, at peace with the neighboring Indian
tribes.

It was a mere bridle-path the horseman was following, which wound
about in various directions, in order to avoid marshy ground, or
trunks of trees, or other obstacles, and appeared to be perfectly
familiar to the horse, who trotted on without any guidance from his
rider. As for the latter, as if to beguile the tediousness of the way,
he would pat at one moment the neck of his dumb companion, and address
a few words to him, and at the next, break out into snatches of song.
Thus he proceeded until he emerged from the woods, and an open space,
the site of the future city of Boston, once the cornfields of warlike
tribes, mysteriously removed by pestilence, in order as to the excited
imaginations of the early settlers it seemed, to make room for the
fugitives, lay spread before him.

The rider stopped his horse, and for some moments sat in silence
gazing on the scene. From the eminence, to whose top he had ridden,
declined before him the sloping hills, on whose sides open cultivated
spaces were interspersed with woods. On the waters' edge, for the most
part, were scattered the houses of the colonists, the majority of them
rude huts, made of unhewn logs, with here and there a frame building,
or a brick or stone house of less humble pretensions, while beyond,
rolled the sparkling waves of the bay, sprinkled with "a great company
of islands, whose high cliffs shoulder out the boisterous seas," as
the old chronicler Wood expresses it, and rocking a few small vessels
lying at anchor. He who viewed the region that morning, must have had
a brilliant imagination to dream of the magnificent cities destined to
stud those coasts, and of the millions to fill those extensive forests
within two hundred years. Westward, indeed, the star of Empire had
taken its way, and the wise men of the East were following its
heavenly guidance; but who knew it then?

At last, excited by the view and his thoughts, the rider rose in his
stirrups, and stretching out his arms, gave expression, in a low
voice, to his feelings--

"Well may these men, who hope to found a new dynasty, be pr