her day I was in a contemplative mood not far
from Washington. I was thinking what a great country I was in, how much
larger the rivers were and how vast the distances, and generally working
up in my own mind an impression of the great size of the country. Then I
happened to recall this incident of the golden-crested wren, and I
found myself thinking, of course, in a tiny little island like Great
Britain, where one cannot go in an express train at fifty miles an hour
from east to west or from north to south in a straight line for more
than fifteen hours without falling into the sea, the only song we could
have in common with a great continent like this would be the song of the
smallest bird.

One trivial incident there was in our walk which gave us some amusement.
We were going by footpaths down a river valley, a very beautiful, but a
very tame and settled country, where anything like an adventure seemed
impossible. We were on a path which I had known for many years, and
along which I had walked many times, not only without adventure, but
without even incident. Suddenly we found ourselves stopped--the path was
flooded, some weeds had blocked the river close by, and instead of a dry
path we had about twenty yards of water in front of us. The water was
not very deep, certainly not above our knees, but I had not intended
that there should be any wading in our walk nor had I prepared for it. I
asked if he would mind going through the water, to which, of course, he
replied that he would not. So we went through, got wet, and in the
course of the afternoon got dry again as we walked. Nothing of the same
kind had happened there before; nothing has happened since. I think
there was some magnetism about Colonel Roosevelt's personality which
created incidents.

After going a few miles down the valley we got into our motor, which was
waiting at a village inn, and drove to what is called the New Forest,
though it is more than eight hundred years old. We were now in a country
of wild heath, quite uncultivated, and the part we went through was
mostly natural forest. Here we heard some birds different from any we
had heard in the valley of the Itchen, and got to a little inn standing
on the open heath about nine o'clock in the evening. We had dinner, and
next morning we breakfasted together and went to Southampton, whence
Colonel Roosevelt returned to America.

I am not attempting here a full appreciation of Colonel Roosevelt. He
wi