are complex.

_J._ The reason is, that there can be no plodding, groping words and
motions on my water as there are on your earth. There is no time,
no chance for them where all moves so rapidly, though so smoothly;
everything connected with water must be like itself, forcible, but
clear. That is why sea-slang is so poetical; there is a word for
everything and every act, and a thing and an act for every word.
Seamen must speak quick and bold, but also with utmost precision.
They cannot reef and brace other than in a Homeric dialect,--
therefore--(Steamboat bell rings.) But I must say a quick good-by.

_M._ What, going, going back to earth after all this talk upon the
other side. Well, that is nowise Homeric, but truly modern.

J. is borne off without time for any reply, but a laugh--at himself,
of course.

S. and M. retire to their state-rooms to forget the wet, the chill,
and steamboat smell, in their just-bought new world of novels.

Next day, when we stopped at Cleveland, the storm was just clearing
up; ascending the bluff, we had one of the finest views of the lake
that could have been wished. The varying depths of these lakes give to
their surface a great variety of coloring, and beneath this wild sky
and changeful light, the waters presented a kaleidoscopic variety
of hues, rich, but mournful. I admire these bluffs of red, crumbling
earth. Here land and water meet under very different auspices from
those of the rock-bound coast to which I have been accustomed. There
they meet tenderly to challenge, and proudly to refuse, though, not in
fact repel. But here they meet to mingle, are always rushing together,
and changing places; a new creation takes place beneath the eye.

The weather grew gradually clearer, but not bright; yet we could see
the shore and appreciate the extent of these noble waters.

Coming up the river St. Clair, we saw Indians for the first time.
They were camped out on the bank. It was twilight, and their blanketed
forms, in listless groups or stealing along the bank, with a lounge
and a stride so different in its wildness from the rudeness of the
white settler, gave me the first feeling that I really approached the
West.

The people on the boat were almost all New-Englanders, seeking their
fortunes. They had brought with them their habits of calculation,
their cautious manners, their love of polemics. It grieved me to hear
these immigrants, who were to be the fathers of a new race, all, f