ive is
to be found save a breeze, I encountered many of my New York friends.
The crowd was now thinned daily by departures; but if the persons who
had departed were as agreeable as those yet remaining, and animated by a
similar spirit of enjoyment, their absence was a serious loss. A spirit
of sociability and good-humour seemed to prevail here; and the
inducements for walking being limited to loose sand-hills, without the
least shade, on a rough shingle beach, the fun was all reserved for the
evening, when the inmates assembled in the drawing-room, where each
contributed a quota; and music, conundrums, waltzing, a quadrille, or a
Virginian reel, made a couple of hours literally fly away. Here, as in
most of the watering-places of the country, early hours appeared a
standing rule.

This house is well arranged, and the table exceedingly good. My stay was
limited to three or four days, a circumstance I regretted the less on
account of finding that most of my intimate acquaintance were returning
to their homes.

On Sunday, September 14th, at two o'clock P.M., embarked on board the
mail-boat for Amboy, taking with me a nag I had used as a saddle-hack
throughout the summer months; my purpose being to ride through the
country intervening between the Raritan and the Delaware rivers, as I
had done on more than one occasion, but never before by the same route
exactly which I now intended to pursue by way of changing the scene.

I found five horses on board the boat, bound for Bordenton races, and
about five o'clock we were all landed at Amboy, whence I directly pushed
on for my next stage, Hightstown. The road was a track of light white
sand, and ran through a close dwarf forest, stocked with a fine growth
of musquitoes, but having no one attraction to call for the halt of a
minute. By half-past seven I had reached my quarters for the night; saw
my horse well taken care of under the superintendence of a good-humoured
Irish boy, who was ostler, and, as he informed me, deputy waiter,
besides having a "power of other things to be doin';" next, partook of a
comfortable supper, and, after a short walk about the village, to bed;
my purpose being to reach Bordenton next morning by six o'clock, to take
the early boat for Philadelphia.

About three o'clock A.M. I was roused by my host, who brought me a
light. He had made a good guess at the time; but it would have been as
well had he slept an hour or two later. My horse was soon got r