stom in America to
name a horse according to the time in which he can trot a mile. The boy
evidently had a visionary idea in his mind that the little hack he was
asking permission to ride, had accomplished the feat of trotting a mile
in two minutes and forty seconds.]

CHAPTER V.

_Geneseo_.

It is a lovely bright autumn morning, with a pure blue sky, and a pearly
atmosphere through which scarce a zephyr is stealing; the boughs of the
trees hang motionless; my window is open; but, how strange the perfect
stillness! No warbling note comes from the feathered tribe to greet the
rising sun, and sing, with untaught voice, their Maker's praise; even
the ubiquitous house-sparrow is neither seen nor heard. How strange this
comparative absence of animal life in a country which, having been so
recently intruded upon by the destroyer--man--one would expect to find
superabundantly populated with those animals, against which he does not
make war either for his use or amusement. Nevertheless, so it is; and I
have often strolled about for hours in the woods, in perfect solitude,
with no sound to meet the ear--no life to catch the eye. But I am
wandering from the house too soon;--a jolly scream in the nursery
reminds me that, at all events, there is animal life within, and that
the possessor thereof has no disease of the lungs.

Let us now speed to breakfast; for folk are early in the New World, and
do not lie a-bed all the forenoon, thinking how to waste the afternoon,
and then, when the afternoon comes, try and relieve the tedium thereof
by cooking up some project to get over the _ennui_ of the evening.
Whatever else you may deny the American, this one virtue you must allow
him. He is, emphatically, an early riser; as much so as our own
most gracious Sovereign, whose example, if followed by her
subjects--especially some in the metropolis--would do more to destroy
London hells, and improve London health, than the Legislature, or Sir B.
Hall, and all the College of Surgeons, can ever hope to effect among the
post-meridian drones.

Breakfast was speedily despatched, and Senor Cabanos y Carvajal followed
as a matter of course. While reducing him to ashes, and luxuriating in
the clouds which proclaim his certain though lingering death, we went
out upon the terrace before the house to wish good speed to my two
companions who were just starting, and to enjoy a view of the far-famed
vale of Genesee. Far as the eye could see, wi