psy nature of this
encampment; though, to be sure, one need not press inside to find them,
for the gay campers are sauntering about in all directions, ladies with
their escorts, children with their nurses, parties returning from
boating or fishing, or riding or bathing: everybody living out in the
open air the whole day through on one pretense or another, and only
repairing to the hotel at meal times, when the exquisite dishes prepared
by French half-breeds suffer the most instant demolition--such hunger
does open air inspire.

I had come here just invalid enough to be benefited by our primitive
style of living; not too delicate to endure it, nor too robust to enjoy
the utter vagabondism of it. There had been no necessity upon us to ape
fashionable manners; no obligation to dress three times a day; no balls
to weary ourselves with at night. Therefore this daily recurring picnic
was just sufficient for our physical recreation, while our mental powers
took absolute rest. For weeks I had arisen every morning to a breakfast
of salmon-trout. French coffee (_au lait_), delicious bread, and fresh
berries; and afterwards to wander about in the cool sea-fog, well
wrapped up in a water-proof cloak. Sometimes we made a boating party up
the lovely Neah-can-a-cum, pulling our boat along under the overhanging
alders and maples, frightening the trout into their hiding-places under
the banks, instead of hooking them as was our ostensible design. The
limpid clearness of the water seemed to reflect the trees from the very
bottom, and truly made a medium almost as transparent as air, through
which the pebbles at the greatest depth appeared within reach of our
hands. A morning idled away in this manner, and an afternoon spent in
seeing the bathers--I never trust my easily curdled blood to the chill
of the sea--and in walking along the sands with a friend, or dreaming
quietly by myself as I watched the surf rolling in all the way from
Tilamook Head to Cape Disappointment,--these were my daily labors and
recreations. The arrival of a bundle of letters, or, still better, of a
new visitor, made what variety there was in our life.

I had both of these excitements in one day. One of my correspondents had
written: "I hope to see you soon, and to have the opportunity, long
sought, of telling you some of the experiences of my early life. When I
promised you this I had not anticipated the pleasure of talking over the
recollections of my youth while