In this brief mention I by no means intend to give myself an air of superiority to the subject.  If a dinner in the Illinois woods, on dry bread and drier meat, with water from the stream that flowed hard by, pleased me best of all, yet, at one time, when living at a house where nothing was prepared for the table fit to touch, and even the bread could not be partaken of without a headache in consequence, I learnt to understand and sympathize with the anxious tone in which fathers of families, about to take their innocent children into some scene of wild beauty, ask first of all, “Is there a good, table?” I shall ask just so in future.  Only those whom the Powers have furnished with small travelling cases of ambrosia can take exercise all day, and be happy without even bread morning or night.

Our voyage back was all pleasure.  It was the fairest day.  I saw the river, the islands, the clouds, to the greatest advantage.

On board was an old man, an Illinois farmer, whom I found a most agreeable companion.  He had just been with his son, and eleven other young men, on an exploring expedition to the shores of Lake Superior.  He was the only old man of the party, but he had enjoyed most of any the journey.  He had been the counsellor and playmate, too, of the young ones.  He was one of those parents—­why so rare?—­who understand and live a new life in that of their children, instead of wasting time and young happiness in trying to make them conform to an object and standard of their own.  The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.  Our farmer was domestic, judicious, solid; the son, inventive, enterprising, superficial, full of follies, full of resources, always liable to failure, sure to rise above it.  The father conformed to, and learnt from, a character he could not change, and won the sweet from the bitter.

His account of his life at home, and of his late adventures among the Indians, was very amusing, but I want talent to write it down, and I have not heard the slang of these people intimately enough.  There is a good book about Indiana, called the New Purchase, written by a person who knows the people of the country well enough to describe them in their own way.  It is not witty, but penetrating, valuable for its practical wisdom and good-humored fun.

There were many sportsman-stories told, too, by those from Illinois and Wisconsin.  I do not retain any of these well enough, nor any that I heard earlier, to write them down, though they always interested me from bringing wild natural scenes before the mind.  It is pleasant for the sportsman to be in countries so alive with game; yet it is so plenty that one would think shooting pigeons or grouse would seem more like slaughter, than the excitement of skill to a good sportsman.  Hunting the deer is full of adventure, and needs only a Scrope to describe it to invest the Western woods with historic associations.