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snared. But all this does not give the history of my day.

We rise in advance of the regular hours, for the "fish-house" is five miles away, and the day must needs be long. Well provisioned in stomach and basket, we set out before light, afoot. Our way lies for some distance along one side of a river valley, down a crooked straggling country road, dodging about through patches of woods, round hard-headed rocky ledges, and passing here and there a solitary house yet alone in the perfect stillness of early morning. The trampling steps and rustic voices of our party broke rudely forward into the yet unviolated silence of the night; which seemed to flee along wood and field, and always to be couching shyly before us, hoping to rest at last undisturbed. We came to a cross-road, at which our former path ended; but our veteran leader unfalteringly guided us across it, through a barn-yard opposite, around the cow-shed, down the lane, through a pair of bars under an apple-tree; and we entered upon one of the footpaths that mark up all country neighborhoods-sneaking about under mysterious shades and remote hill sides, or edging along by pasture fences, and disappearing under a log, or tapering off into a mouse track; but which lead the initiated to many a destination much to be desired for work or for sport. This one led us under an orchard of apple-trees all drenched in dew, through a mowing-lot or two, over a ridge thinly set with trees, and out upon the last swell of the sinking upland, where it sloped away into the wide open level of the salt meadows, and looked out upon the sea beyond, which gleamed out from under the morning mists (for by this time the sun looked out upon the landscape), and came brimming up in the fulness of the flood-tide to the limit of the low beach, as if meditating a good run and roll across the meadow. Now we could see the river again, all swollen and black with the regorged salt water, creeping half choked and crookedly about in the meadow, between two narrow edgings of sedge, as you may see a burly face within a slender rim of whisker. As we descended upon the salt alluvium, the plague of mosquitoes arose upon us. After every man, as after Fergus MacIvor Vich Ian Vohr, went a tail of devoted followers: and like his, ours proposed to make a living out of their leader. Content now dwelt in cowhide boots; much grumbling and some blood came from those whose ankles were yarndefended only; and an irregular fire of VOL. III.-24

slaps did considerable execution among the foe, as they came piping and singing to the onset, like Milton's devils. Thus escorted, in the style of Bon Gaultier's Thairshon

"With four and twenty men,

And five and twenty pipers,"

we crossed the marsh to the stygian seeming river, crossed the river in a stygian seeming skiff, rickety and patched, which was dislodged from a cunning concealment in a sedgy ditch and "sculled" (not an inappropriate motive power for the skiff of the dead; undoubtedly Charon's method of propulsion) with one hand by our dextrous chief, and resumed our dreary and slippery walk on the other side. Now the fish-house loomed up on the neighboring beach, looking, on its solitary rocky perch, as large as a farm-house, but shrinking as we approached, until as we entered it, it became definitely about twelve feet square, and seven feet "between joints." It was fitted up with half a dozen bunks filled with salt hay for bedding, a table and chairs rather halt, a fire-place, a closet, an attic, a kettle, a fryingpan, sundry other cooking utensils, and an extensive assortment of antique and grotesque garments. Hats consisting of a large hole edged with a narrow rim, great rusty boots, trowsers such as if a young tornado had worn and torn them, and horrid red shirts, sat, stood, lay and hung, on floor, chairs, bedside or rafters, as though a troop of imps had been rioting up and down in them, and at the opening of the door by mortal men, had instantaneously jumped out and fled.

The provisions were stored in the closet, and the members of the "fish-gang" disguised themselves in piratical outfits from the aforesaid ready-made stock, leaving their decent clothes for their return home, and becoming, in their wild and ragged gear, entirely independent of moisture and of mud. Next, they hauled up the boat -a great clumsy, flat-bottomed, heavysterned scow, equipped with a capstan forward and a platform aft to carry the seine -and having beached her in front of the reel, proceeded to unreel and ship the seine, ready for setting. We boys armed ourselves with old hoes and tin pots, and marched off to dig long clams, with an eye to a stew at home, and to the inveigling of certain blackfish, sea-bass, and other of the Neptunian herds, understood to be lurking and wandering around the rocks in front of the fish-house, at proper times of tide. When the seine was all aboard, the fishermen sat down on the sand and

rocks, and one climbed the signal-pole, to look out for a "school" of fish.

The fish-house was on a point at the western end of a somewhat shallow bay, whose shore, a silver-sanded beach, ran curving round to the point on the other side. The fish, as before mentioned, always come from the eastward; working up into the shallows, skittering and skimming in sport along the surface, or fleeing in haste before the sharks or porpoises or other great fish who follow after them for their meals and the wide dark ripple of the whole shoal, the racing spatter of a frightened few, or the bay all dotted with the quietly emergent little black blackfins, or tails flourishing aloft preparatory to a dive after lunch, are the signs that betray his booty to the fisherman's eye. "I see a flag!" sings out an ardent youth. Flag is, metaphorically, tail, from its flaunting display by the ambitious owner. The experienced elders don't see it, probably because the young man saw it first; but immediately the great "school" with one consent deploys upon the smooth surface of the bay, and ten thousand back fins and tails dot the quiet water, which ripples and rustles with the glancing mass of life within its bosom. Hoes and tin pots are cast aside, as we rush to see the sport; for the fishermen have sprung for the boat, in excitement intense, but repressed for fear of alarming the timid fish. They launch their awkward craft, and softly pull away to seaward, amid smothered prophecies of from ten to a hundred and fifty thousand fish, and under the captaincy of steady old Uncle Jim Langdon, who stands in the stern-sheets to direct the rowers and to deliver over the net. He guides the boat by ordering the oarsmen; not with the salt phrases of oceanic seamanships, but with the same words that rule old Buck and Bright, at his farmstead up by the East Woods. "Haw now, Bill, a little; haw I tell you; there, go 'long." Now he lifts off the wide net, as the "warp," left fastened to the capstan ashore, under the reel, drags it silently down into the water, and the lengthening line of floats, bobs and wavers upon the sea. "Haw a little; haw boat; pull now; pull! Con-found their darned picters," says Uncle Jim, in a sudden revulsion of wrath, for all the fish have suddenly sunk, and there is danger that they will disgracefully sneak out under the lower edge of the net while it hangs in deep water, and walk away each with his tongue in his cheek, leaving the fishermen only "fisherman's luck." "There, there they are ag'in," says the old man,

as the black points stick out once more: -"Go it. Come, pull ahead." And the heavy boat sweeps slowly round the fish, until the whole seine, eighty rods long, just a quarter of a mile, hangs in the sea around them.

"Unconscious of their fate, the little victims play,"

and the fishermen beach the boat at the other side of the bay, carry the warp at that end to the further capstan, and prepare to haul. Now there is need of all hands and the cook;" for the sooner the warp can be wound in upon the capstans, the sooner the net will range up into shallow water, where the danger of losing fish under the lead-line will be over. Both capstans are manned, and boys and men shove round the bars on the "keen jump," until soon the staff at either end of the net comes riding up the beach. Now comes hard pulling; for the rest of the net must be drawn in by hand, and it holds many fish and much water, besides the drag of the corks on the surface and of the lead-line on the bottom. Slowly and steadily come the two ends of the net, hand over hand, piled up as it comes in on the beach. A fish or two appears, hung by the gills in the meshes. A troop of innocent-looking fellows come darting along from the middle of the net, having just discovered that they are inside of something. Now the fact becomes universally known among the ensnared ; and they dart backward and forward by hundreds and by fifties, seeking escape. There is none. They are crowded closer and closer within their narrowing prison-house. The water thickens, rustles, boils with them. And now, a great throbbing slippery mass, they lie squeezed up together in the bag of the net, while two exultant captors run for baskets. And a boat-hook; for Uncle Jim points out a long black thong like a carter's whip, slung out once or twice above the seething whitefish, announcing the dreaded sting-ray; and certain wallops elsewhere advise of the presence of a shark. The baskets come. Two men take each, dip them full of flapping fish, carry them up the beach, and throw them down to die, between hot sun and hotter sand. After twenty minutes of such work, the dippers dip carefully, lest they get a stroke from the ray, who has sunk quietly to the bottom, or a nip from his cousin the "sea-attorney." Somebody has hit the "stinger," as they call him, and he wallops up to the surface, and snaps his long tail about. Suddenly a bold young fellow grips the extremity of it, and with both hands holds tight

singing out sharply, while the great flat clumsy fish wabbles and "flops" this way and that way, nearly hauling his captor over upon his nose among the fish, "Jab the boat-hook into him, quick, will ye?" Chunk! it goes, fairly into the creature's back; four men seize the hook-staff, and walk the big sting-ray bodily out ashore, his first friend steering him behind by the tail. Poor old ray! he lies wounded and bleeding on the dry, hot sand, guggling and choking, helpless and doomed. I run and jump up before him, whereupon he unexpectedly gives a strange loud watery snort, and wallops almost off the ground, as if, like Mr. Briggs' pickerel (see London Punch), he were going to "fly at me, and bark like a dog." It scares me, until I reflect upon his locomotive disadvantages, and so I repeat my irritating gambadoes, until the monster is too dead to notice them. He weighs at least five hundred pounds; and is long enough and broad enough to cover a table for six. His three "stings" are cut off and given me to scrape, wash and preserve, with strict cautions from the friendly fishermen against allowing the sharp points or barbs, or the poisonous black slime adhering to them, to get through my skin. These "stings" are tapering two-edged daggers of hard white bone, set flatwise one over the other upon the upper side of the ray's tail, and so jointed on that they can be erected and made to stand out like three fingers stretched apart. The ends, and the barbs that point backwards along the sides, are as sharp as needles, and will inflict a frightful ragged cut. No wound is more dangerous or more dreaded. The slimy black venom which sticks all over the stings lodges in the lesion, and the unlucky recipient of the ray's blow is in imminent danger of lock-jaw. A friend of mine was hit by one of these ugly things in the ancle. The barbed blade caught among the sinews, and drew one of them fairly out from the leg—a red and white string a foot long. He was laid up long with the consequent inflammation and fever; had lock-jaw; almost died; and halts yet upon the leg which the "stinger" stung. Of the three stings which the fishermen gave me, I send one to the Editor of Putnam's Monthly with these sheets.

The whitefish are all deposited upon the beach, in silvery, sliddering heaps; choking, gasping and jumping; or curling into shuddering, agonized rings for a moment, and then quietly straightening out to die. Last of all, the sneaking shark, who had nosed off to the furthest corner

and wound himself up in the net, hoping to be hidden, is hauled up, and turned, kicking and kicked, out from the twisted meshes, to share the fate of those he had desired to destroy. It is pitiful to see the little whitefish gape and tumble and bounce about in innocent agony. The clumsy ray never troubles any body except in self-defence, and gets some sympathy; but nobody sympathizes with the pig-eyed, shovel-nosed villain who now spats the sand, and winks and nips with his three rows of thorny teeth, as he feels his thievish life slipping away from him. I sarcastically hint that he must be hungry, since he opens his mouth so wide; and I cautiously insert therein a whitefish or two, and set them well down with a stick. He has no appetite, after all, and spits them out; and, as I renew my attentions, he gathers himself up in a rage, and springs at me so strongly that the grinning jaws snap together within an inch of my fist. A little more strength in the old scoundrel's tail, and I should have repented me of catering for the shark. I recommend nobody to feed sharks from his fingers.

The net is empty-all but sundry nondescripts of the sea which stick here and there upon the meshes. A "sea-spider" or two, like a large mouldy acorn with six long legs; red starfish; varieties of seaweed; a stick and a fragment of old rope, are all. Half the hands count the fish, putting them in piles of four or five thousand each, and the rest replace the seine upon the boat, in readiness for another haul.

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Dinner is cooked in a great iron pot. It is a chowder, of course-fisherman's food; what should it be?—Not the "old, original" chowder, the codfish aristocrat of chowders, whose idea is consecrated by the masterly manipulations and majestic name of the mighty man of Marshfieldthe Republican King "--but still a chowder, a delicious dish to appetites sharpened by sea air and sea water. It is a many-sided dish; of pork and fish, potatoes and bread, and onions and turnips -"all compact"-" chequits" and seabass, blackfish, long clams, "pumpkinseeds," and an accidental eel, all contribute. Pepper and salt, but especially hunger, are the seasoning: and I firmly believe that no such flavorous food ever slid tickling down mortal throat, as plopped out from the canted chowderkettle in the solitary fish-house by the

sea.

Late at night we returned home; the gain to the fishers being about a hundred

thousand fish, worth some forty or fifty dollars, and the gain to me being a store of happy memories; not so salable, perhaps, as the fish, but lasting longer and fresher, neither by me willingly to be exchanged for any ordinary tangible commodity.

Such was my life with the farmers by the sea. The time and space fail me to tell of the rock weeding expeditions; the wanderings after lost cattle in the woods; the wood-cutting in the same; the whortleberry parties; the numberless delightful and adventurous occupations in which my farming summers passed. It was pleasure unspeakable. And not that only, but I gained a store of strength, and hardy habits to keep it good, which subsequent years of study and confinement have not hitherto exhausted. I never can see a thin, white-faced schoolboy of twelve or fifteen, that I do not long to exile him; to expatriate him for a year or two from the pie and cake, the coddling and cookery of home, the weary, brain

baking of his school, out into the healthy world of the workers in the soil. His parents would be glad, however indignant or sorrowful at the parting, when he should return, as brown as a berry, straight, strong and hearty, almost able to eat his former self, if he were forthcoming.

I also gained an invaluable agricultural bias; so that I am ready, when my expected competence shall have been accumulated, to betake myself to the shadow of my trees and vines, and to the sunshine of my tilled land, and there in peace to end my days, living in the world of God, among the trees, the plants, the dumb beasts, the earth, the infinitude of beauty and vigor and youth, designed by him; as much superior to architectural and artistic parrotries of stone and canvas, as the pure, mystic beauty of Mont Blanc, the glories of the sea, of storms, and of the evening clouds, are superior to the gorgeous drapery and gilt gingerbread of a hotel bridal-chamber.

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NOTES FROM MY KNAPSACK.

NUMBER III.

NAMES

SOAP PLANT-JUNCTION WITH THE ADVANCE-MIDNIGHT CRY-MILITARY ENGINEERING OWLS-CAMP ON THE NUECES-PERILOUS PASSAGE-PRICKLY PEar-vegetabLE MONSTERS OUR FLAG-TARANTULAREST-RACE-THE RIO GRANDE-WHITE FLAG-THE PRESIDIO-WOMEN AND CHILDREN-PROBLEM IN POLITICAL ECONOMY-MILITARY FUNERAL-FORDING-MEXICAN EMBASSY-THE ALCALDE THE PADRE-NEW CAMP -TRAFFIC-POPULATION-ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE-FALSE ALARM.

AT six o'clock on the morning of the 1st

of October, we took our last look at the lofty precipices, giant boulders, and crystal fountains which are the ministering spirits of the Hondo. After emerging from the long grass amid which our tents were pitched, we entered upon an open prairie, partaking of the genuine "hogwallow" characteristics, and in wet weather doubtless offering to the traveller the most cogently cohesive arguments against progress. An interval of about seven miles separates the Hondo from the Seco. Apropos of Rio Seco, it is said that these words constitute the original name of that great battle-field, known as Resaca de la Palma, but that the Mexican who first communicated the name was not understood, and that "Resaca" was as near the truth-Mexican truth-as the translator could come. This explanation—whether accurate or not-does not appear improbable, inasmuch as the position taken by General Arista, when driven from Palo Alto, was in the rear of the bed of a defunct rivulet, the banks of which formed a natural semi-circular parapet, with the concavity towards the Americans.

This day we first observed a few specimens of the "soap plant"-a bulbous root extensively used among the Mexicans as a substitute for soap. The plant, it is said, seldom grows more than a foot high; the stalk and leaves drop off in the spring, though the bulbs, it is said, remain in the ground an entire season without decaying. The mode of using it is to peel off the skin or exterior coating, then immerse the root in water until it is somewhat softened, and apply to clothes in the same manner as soap. Woollen fabrics alone, we are told, are washed with it, the colors of which when but slightly faded, are restored to nearly their original brightness.

We arrived at the Sabinal between twelve and one o'clock, on the banks of which the advance troops were comfortably encamped. The highest and hottest points in the vicinity, succeeded

in finding, for pitching the tents of the new arrivals and also the furthest, or as

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A blast from the bugles of the 2d Dragoons, which drew forth a universal tremor of disgust from the whole camp, and which was answered from the lungs of a hundred echoes, rang out clear and shrill the next morning about three o'clock. In a few minutes the entire body was in motion: mules snorting, horses snickering, harness rattling, teamsters cursing, cooks growling, men grunting, and officers grumbling, shivering, and dressing. Venus was the solitary sovereign of the firmament, as we filed into the road at half-past five o'clock. When the sun rose upon the column, as it appeared for the first time after the junction, the spectacle was spirited and attractive. At the head of the army, the bright barrels and bayonets of the regular infantry, under the veteran Bonneville, of Rocky Mountain memory, gave proudly back the glancing rays of the morning sun: then followed the battalion baggage wagons, and to these succeeded the bronzed corsairish visages and heavy armor of the 1st Dragoons. Next came thundering on Washington's artillery, officers and men in full uniform, their red horse-hair plumes waving like crescent flags in the eastern breeze, and their polished pieces reflecting the passing images of the surrounding landscape. Immediately behind, the heavy clattering of horses' hoofs, and the clangor of mounted troops, indicated the approach of the 2d Dragoons, the rear being marked by a long line of white-the covers of the principal train of wagons, amounting to one hundred and fifty, and stretching over an extent of nearly two miles. Last of all came the rear-guard-itself no mean epitome of army variety-rivalling in costumes and appointments the platoons of Falstaff.

We arrived at Stony Creek, after a march of seven miles, about eight o'clock. The intervening country presents very little novelty. There is a sort of wild luxuriance abroad over the prairie, which exhausts the energy of the soil by a spe

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