, geographical, and ethnological information, and
seasoning it with adventure from your glowing imagination. But it
seemed to me that it would be a more honest contribution if our account
contained only what we saw, in our rapid travel; for I have a theory
that any addition to the great body of print, however insignificant
it may be, has a value in proportion to its originality and
individuality,--however slight either is,--and very little value if it
is a compilation of the observations of others. In this case I know
how slight the value is; and I can only hope that as the trip was very
entertaining to us, the record of it may not be wholly unentertaining to
those of like tastes.

Of one thing, my dear friend, I am certain: if the readers of this
little journey could have during its persual the companionship that the
writer had when it was made, they would think it altogether delightful.
There is no pleasure comparable to that of going about the world, in
pleasant weather, with a good comrade, if the mind is distracted neither
by care, nor ambition, nor the greed of gain. The delight there is
in seeing things, without any hope of pecuniary profit from them! We
certainly enjoyed that inward peace which the philosopher associates
with the absence of desire for money. For, as Plato says in the Phaedo,
"whence come wars and fightings and factions? whence but from the
body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of
money." So also are the majority of the anxieties of life. We left
these behind when we went into the Provinces with no design of acquiring
anything there. I hope it may be my fortune to travel further with you
in this fair world, under similar circumstances.

NOOK FARM, HARTFORD, April 10, 1874.

C. D. W.

BADDECK AND THAT SORT OF THING

I

"Ay, now I am in Arden: the more fool I; when I was at home,
I was in a better place; but travellers must be content."
--TOUCHSTONE.

Two comrades and travelers, who sought a better country than the United
States in the month of August, found themselves one evening in apparent
possession of the ancient town of Boston.

The shops were closed at early candle-light; the fashionable inhabitants
had retired into the country, or into the second-story-back, of their
princely residences, and even an air of tender gloom settled upon the
Common. The streets were almost empty, and one passed into the burnt