roductive; the trees that grow here are the birch, the maple,
and others of the deciduous class; natural meadows here and there
present themselves; and some of these spots far surpass in rural beauty
any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, abounding towards their
sources in water-falls of endless variety, as well in form as in
magnitude, and always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their
surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in
thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the beautiful trees,
which, sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the creeks.

143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took great
delight, came to a spot at a very short distance from the source of one
of these creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, and especially
of one like me, who seem to have been born to love rural life, and trees
and plants of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres of natural
meadow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in various forms and of
various extent; the creek (there about thirty miles from its point of
joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a
sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at
the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in
the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down
in cascades, for any one of which many a nobleman in England would, if
he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in
the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season,
salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant, and so easily taken, as
to be used for manuring the land.

144. If nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for the express
purpose of captivating me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which
she had here made. But I found something here besides these rude works
of nature; I found something in the fashioning of which _man_ had had
something to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling house,
standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very good field of
Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a piece of buck-wheat just
then mowed. I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I found all
the things by which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded: and I found
still something besides all these; something that was destined to give
me a great deal of pleasure and also a