eacherous heap of shifting sand. The pilot sat in the
stern-sheets of the dancing boat, steering steadily with an oar. His
brother tended the sail, and I was crouched amidships. As we approached
nearer the scene of commotion, our younger companion assumed a station
in the bow of the boat and began to sound with an oar. This looked a
little formidable to a landsman; and soon turning his head in the
interval of hastily pushing his implement into the water, the bowsman
called out to his brother, "Joe, are you going to try it?" Joe made no
sign, but steered steadily on. Again and again the sounding oar went
rapidly down, and I suppose at last to the bottom, and again the young
man cried out with renewed energy, "Joe, are you going to try it?" Joe
uttered no word, but chewing his quid, looked steadfastly forward. In a
moment a heavy wave struck the boat, drenching us plentifully, but not
filling her, and bounding up, staggering a little, she dashed on, and
with another like slap or two, we were over and in fairly smooth water.
Had the boat struck bottom, she would have been instantly dashed to
pieces and we should have met the sad fate of others who, before and
since, have been drowned and lost to sight forever in that seething
tide.

In a conversation with a very eminent English novelist, of profounder
skill and more permanent fame, in my opinion, than any other since Scott,
he expressed his surprise at the solid aspect of the city of Boston, in
which we had met, on the day after his arrival in this country, upon his
first lecturing tour. He had enjoyed the best opportunities of viewing
"men and cities," not only in Europe, but in various parts of the farther
East. I took the liberty of replying that Boston had been growing nearly
two centuries and a half, and inquired if he expected to see wigwams, or
even those slighter fabrics which betoken the earlier stages of advancing
colonization. He said, "No, of course not; but it had quite as
substantial an appearance as an English city." But it is to be remembered
that the persons who came to this country, at first, and from time to
time, afterwards, were already civilized, and brought with them and
transmitted to their descendants much of the knowledge and many of the
habits, peculiarities, and even the traditions of their ancestors "at
home." Our town, too, looked old; though far from being so substantially
built as Boston.

In fact, while reading the fragment of Scott's auto