expedition, and black-caps are turning; while bergamot and vervain are
among the plants newly added to the herbarium.

* * * * *

Stewart's Island, Friday, 8th.--We arose this morning to find the tent
as wet from dew and fog as if there had been a shower, and the bushes
by the landing were sparkling with great beads of moisture. The bold,
black head of Hurricane Island stood out with startling distinctness,
framed in rolling fog; through a cloud-bank on the horizon, the sun
was bursting with the dull glow of burnished copper. By the time of
starting, the fog had lifted, and the sun swung clear in a steel-blue
sky; but there was still a soft haze on land and river, which dreamily
closed the ever-changing vistas, and we seemed to float through an
enchanted land.

The approach to Elizabethtown, Ill. (877 miles), is picturesque;
but of the dry little town of seven hundred souls, with its rocky,
undulating streets set in a break in the line of palisades, very
little is to be seen from the river. Quarrying for paving-stones
appears to be the chief pursuit of the Elizabethans. At Rose Clare,
Ill., a string of shanties three miles below, are two idle plants of
the Argyle Lead and Fluor-Spar Mining Co. Carrsville, Ky., is another
arid, hillside hamlet, with striking escarpments stretching above and
below for several miles. Mammoth boulders, a dozen or more feet in
height, relics doubtless of once formidable cliffs, here line the
riverside. The palisaded hills reappear in Illinois, commencing at
Parkinson's Landing, a dreary little settlement on a waste of barren,
stony slope flanking the perpendicular wall.

Just above Golconda Island (890 miles), on the Illinois side, we
were witness to a "meet" of farmers for a squirrel-hunt, a favorite
amusement in these parts. There were five men upon a side, all
carrying guns; as we passed, they were shaking hands, preparatory to
separating for the battue. Upon the bank above, in a grove of cypress,
pawpaw, and sycamore, their horses were standing, unhitched from the
poles of the wagons in which they had been driven, and, tied to trees,
feeding from boxes set upon the ground. It was pleasant to see that
these people, who must lead dreary lives upon the malaria-stricken
and flood-washed bottoms, occasionally take a holiday with a spice of
rational adventure in it; although there is the probability that this
squirrel-hunt may be followed to-night by a roystering at t