ll "do as he best pleases;" consequently, there is a
little information to be obtained from the fresh arrival, a cock-tail
with a friend or two, a quiet piling on of luggage, &c.; all this takes
a long half-hour, and away we go with four tough little nags. A
tremendous long hill warms their hides and cools their mettle, though by
no means expending it. On we go, merrily; Jehu, a free-and-easy,
well-informed companion, guessing at certainties and calculating on
facts.

At last we reach a spring by the roadside, the steam rising from the
flanks of the team like mist from a marsh. What do I see? Number one nag
with a pailful of water, swigging away like a Glasgow baillie at a bowl
of punch. He drains it dry with a rapidity which says "More, more!" and
sure enough they keep on giving pail after pail, till he has taken in
enough to burst the tough hide of a rhinoceros. I naturally concluded
the horse was an invalid, or a culprit who had got drunk, and that they
were mixing the liquor "black list" fashion, to save his intestines and
to improve his manners; but no--round goes the pailman to every nag,
drenching each to the bursting point.

"Ain't you afraid," I said, "of killing the poor beasts by giving them
such a lot of water?"

"I guess if I was, I shouldn't give it 'em," was the terse reply.

Upon making further inquiries into this mysterious treatment, he told me
that it was a sulphur spring, and that all tired horses having exhibited
an avidity for it far greater than for common water, the instinct of the
animal had been given a fair trial, and subsequent experience had so
ratified that instinct that it had become a "known fact." An intelligent
American, sitting at the feet of a quadruped Gamaliel, humbly learning
from his instincts, should teach the bigots of every class and clime to
let their prejudices hang more loosely upon them. But half an hour has
passed, and Jehu is again on the box, the nags as fresh as daisies, and
as full as a corncob. Half an hour more lands us at Niagara. Avoiding
the hum of men, I took refuge for the night in a snug little cottage
handy to the railway, and, having deposited my traps, started on a
moonlight trip. I need scarce say whither.

Men of the highest and loftiest minds, men of the humblest and simplest
minds, the poet and the philosopher, the shepherd and the Christian,
have alike borne testimony to the fact, that the solitude of night tends
to solemnize and elevate the though