district, where the scarred ruins and the uplifting piles of new brick
and stone spread abroad under the flooding light of a full moon like
another Pompeii, without any increase in his feeling of tranquil
seclusion. Even the news-offices had put up their shutters, and a
confiding stranger could nowhere buy a guide-book to help his wandering
feet about the reposeful city, or to show him how to get out of it.
There was, to be sure, a cheerful tinkle of horse-car bells in the air,
and in the creeping vehicles which created this levity of sound were a
few lonesome passengers on their way to Scollay's Square; but the two
travelers, not having well-regulated minds, had no desire to go there.
What would have become of Boston if the great fire had reached this
sacred point of pilgrimage no merely human mind can imagine. Without
it, I suppose the horse-cars would go continually round and round,
never stopping, until the cars fell away piecemeal on the track, and
the horses collapsed into a mere mass of bones and harness, and the
brown-covered books from the Public Library, in the hands of the fading
virgins who carried them, had accumulated fines to an incalculable
amount.

Boston, notwithstanding its partial destruction by fire, is still a good
place to start from. When one meditates an excursion into an unknown
and perhaps perilous land, where the flag will not protect him and
the greenback will only partially support him, he likes to steady and
tranquilize his mind by a peaceful halt and a serene start. So we--for
the intelligent reader has already identified us with the two travelers
resolved to spend the last night, before beginning our journey, in the
quiet of a Boston hotel. Some people go into the country for quiet: we
knew better. The country is no place for sleep. The general absence of
sound which prevails at night is only a sort of background which brings
out more vividly the special and unexpected disturbances which are
suddenly sprung upon the restless listener. There are a thousand
pokerish noises that no one can account for, which excite the nerves to
acute watchfulness.

It is still early, and one is beginning to be lulled by the frogs and
the crickets, when the faint rattle of a drum is heard,--just a few
preliminary taps. But the soul takes alarm, and well it may, for a roll
follows, and then a rub-a-dub-dub, and the farmer's boy who is handling
the sticks and pounding the distended skin in a neighboring ho