rture we
learnt that a very _satisfactory_ collection had been made by
the preachers, for Bibles, Tracts, and _all other religious
purposes_.

CHAPTER 16

Danger of rural excursions--Sickness

It is by no means easy to enjoy the beauties of American scenery
in the west, even when you are in a neighbourhood that affords
much to admire; at least, in doing so, you run considerable risk
of injuring your health. Nothing is considered more dangerous
than exposure to midday heat, except exposure to evening damp;
and the twilight is so short, that if you set out on an
expedition when the fervid heat subsides, you can hardly get half
a mile before "sun down," as they call it, warns you that you
must run or drive home again, as fast as possible, for fear you
should get "a chill."

I believe we braved all this more than any one else in the whole
country, and if we had not, we should have left Cincinnati
without seeing any thing of the country around it.

Though we kept steadily to our resolution of passing no more
sylvan hours in the forests of Ohio, we often spent entire days
in Kentucky, tracing the course of a "creek," or climbing the
highest points within our reach, in the hope of catching a
glimpse of some distant object. A beautiful reach of the Ohio,
or the dark windings of the pretty Licking, were indeed always
the most remarkable features in the landscape.

There was one spot, however, so beautiful that we visited it
again and again; it was by no means free from mosquitoes; and
being on the bank of a stream, with many enormous trees lying on
the half-cleared ground around, it was just such a place as we
had been told a hundred times was particularly "dangerous;"
nevertheless, we dared every thing for the sake of dining beside
our beautiful rippling stream, and watching the bright sunbeams
dancing on the grassy bank, at such a distance from our retreat
that they could not heat us. A little below the basin that
cooled our wine was a cascade of sufficient dimensions to give us
all the music of a waterfall, and all the sparkling brightness of
clear water when it is broken again and again by jutting crags.

To sit beside this miniature cascade, and read, or dream away a
day, was one of our greatest pleasures.

It was indeed a mortifying fact, that whenever we found out a
picturesque nook, where turf, and moss, and deep shade, and a
crystal stream, and fallen trees, majestic in their ruin, tempted
us