astonishment and admiration, and
declared that he saw a kangaroo, and then, in short and rapid
succession, a rhinoceros, an armadillo, and a crocodile, I felt, in the
words of General Banks, "We have now reached that limit," and shut down
the gates upon credulity.

At a little village among the mountains we met our friends, and stopped
a week or two, loath to leave the charmed spot. "Where?" Never mind.
A place where the sun shines, and lavender-hued clouds whirl in craggy,
defiant, thunderous masses around imperturbable mountain-tops; and
vapors, pearly and amber-tinted, have not forgotten to float softly
among the valleys; and evening skies fling out their pink and purple
banner; and stars throb, and glow, and flash, with a radiant life that
is not of the earth;--where great rivers have not yet put on the
majesty of manhood, but trill over pebbles, curl around rocks, ripple
against banks, waltz little eddies, spread dainty pools for gay little
trout, dash up saucy spray into the eyes of bending ferns, mock the
frantic struggles of lost flowers and twigs, tantalizing them with hope
of a rest that never comes, leap headlong, swirling and singing with a
thousand silver tongues, down cranny and ravine in all the wild
winsomeness of unchecked youth;--a land flowing with maple-molasses and
sugar, and cider applesauce, and cheese new and old, and baked beans,
and three sermons on Sundays, besides Sabbath school at noon, and no
time to go home; and wagons with three seats, [Mem. Always choose the
back seat, if you wish to secure a reputation for amiability,] three on
a seat, two and a colt trotting gravely beside his mother; roads all
sand in the hollows and all ruts on the hills, blocked up by snow in
the winter, and washed away by thunder-showers in the summer;--a land
where carpets are disdained, latches are of wood, thieves unknown,
wainscots and wells au naturel, women are as busy as bees all day and
knit in the chinks, men are invisible till evening, girls braid hats
and have beaux, and everybody goes to bed and to sleep at nine o'clock,
and gets up nobody knows when, and cooks, eats, and "clears away"
breakfast before other people have fairly rubbed their eyes open; where
all the town are neighbors for ten miles round, and know your outgoings
and incomings without impertinence, gossip without a sting, are
intelligent without pretension, sturdy without rudeness, honest without
effort, and cherish an orthodoxy true as