k_ of the night-hawk could be heard all over Arasapha,
which is the Indian name for the place where our city stands; there were
in Coaquannoc, or the Schuylkill, abundant gold fish and perch, of which
I angled divers. Yes, there was, and still is, a Fisher Club, which
claims to be the oldest gentleman's club in Anglo-Saxony, and which has
for two centuries brewed for itself a "fish-house punch" as delicious as
that of London civic banquets. There be no fish in the fair river now;
they have all vanished before the combined forces of petroleum and the
offal of factories and mines, but the Fish-House Club still has its merry
banquets in its ancient home; for, as the French say, "_Chacun peche a sa
maniere_." In graveyards lone or over gardens green glittered of summer
nights millions of fireflies; there was the scent of magnolias, roses,
pinks, and honeysuckles by every house; for Philadelphians have always
had a passion for flowers, and there never was a Quaker, much less a
Quakeress, who has not studied botany, and wandered in Bartram's Garden
and culled blue gentians in the early fall, or lilies wild in
Wissahickon's shade. There still remains a very beautiful relic of this
olden time in the old Swedes Church, which every stranger should visit.
It is a quaint structure of more than two hundred years, and in its large
churchyard (which is not, like Karamsin's graves, "deserted and drear,"
but charming and garden-like) one can imagine himself in rural England.

In the spring of the year there was joyous activity on the Delaware, even
in town; for, as the song hath it--

"De fishin' time hab come at last,
De winter all am gone and past;"

and there was the casting of immense seines and the catching of myriads
of shad, the typical fish or emblem of the Quaker Philadelphian, because
in the profile outline of the shad people professed to discern the form
according to which the Quaker coat was cut. With the shad were many
herring, and now and then a desperate giant of a sturgeon, who in his
struggles would give those concerned enough to do. Then the yells of the
black fishermen, the flapping of the horny knife-backed prey--often by
the flashing of a night-fire--formed a picture worthy of Rembrandt.
Apropos of these sturgeon, the fresh caviare or roe (which has been
pronounced at St. Petersburg to surpass the Russian) was always thrown
away, as was often the case with sweetbreads, which were rarely eaten.
But if t