latitude, I conjectured, and rightly, that it must be no less a personage than Sir Bruin himself. At the identical moment when we made the discovery, my sable coated friend had also ascertained my proximity, and not knowing but that I might be fair game for him, wheeled in his track and returned. Totally unarmed, save a large hack-knife, I stepped aside to a huge tree, and placing my back against it awaited his coming. It was but a moment; the cane parted and there he stood, but stood not long. I have before in my life made some noise, yet it was surely but as silence when compared to the yell with which I greeted him. Which of us was the more alarmed I know not, but the victory was with me. Bruin retreated without touch of drum, and, with a snort resembling that of a plethoric specimen of the porcine genus in a state of excessive alarm, abandoned the field. My joy at his departure was much increased by the discovery that the tree where I was standing was upon the bank of the bayou, which I now determined to keep in sight until the end and aim of my journey was attained. In a few minutes I fell in with a path newly cut in the dense cane, and pressed onward with renewed vigor. Presently I came to a tree which bore so striking a resemblance to the one which stood upon the scene of the bear's stampede, that I paused to look at it, but remembering that it was no phenomenon to find two trees similar to each other in the forest, I resumed my course. After the lapse of a short interval I passed a third, then a fourth, and finally a fifth tree, all alike, and for the first time the many tales I had heard of lost travellers moving round and round in a circle from which there seemed no escape flashed upon my mind. But no; this might not be, I had kept the banks of the bayou upon my right, and must now be going down stream. However, for my satisfaction, I determined to mark the tree with a "blaze," did so, and went on. In a short time my vegetable "old man of the sea" again hove in sight, and upon examination there was the "blaze" I had so lately cut. It was perfectly inexplicable. Had I gone mad? Was this some illusion of the senses? I thought, and with a shudder, of a certain old, withered, parchment faced African negress, a privileged character in Joe's settlement, whose hitherto undisputed claims to the possession of magic power, I had seen fit to call in question and ridicule, only the previous evening, to the manifest alarm of the listeners. A moment's reflection, however, banished all this, and laughing at my singular situation, I determined coute qui coute, to escape from this modern labyrinth. Down the precipitate banks of the bayou I dashed, and made my way, now upon one side of the nearly dried up stream, now upon the other, and now through the shallow water in its bed. Once more and for the last time my tree was seen, and the mystery was solved. It appears I had stumbled upon a peninsular formed by the bayou's doubling upon itself. The entrance was but a step from bank to bank, and my chance of finding the way out by the same isthmus was small indeed. By the time I reached the river, the sun was declining, and threatening clouds warned me to make the best of my way homeward. Without experiencing any serious mishap, save my reaching the prairie three miles above the proper place, I arrived in safety, perfectly satisfied with my exploit, and willing in future to await Joe's motions. At last behold us fairly located upon the banks of the river, where Joe had selected a fine, hard shingle beach upon which to pitch our camp. This said camp was an extemporaneous affair, a kind of al fresco home, formed by setting up a few crotchets to sustain a rude roof of undressed shingles, man.ufactured impromptu,-there known as "boards," supported upon diminutive rafters of cane. This done, a cypress suitable for a canoe, or "dug out," was selected, and in two days shaped, hollowed out, and launched. Fairly embarked now in the business, I found but little difficulty in obtaining a supply of green trout and other kinds of river fish, but the huge "Cats" where were they? I fished at early morn and dewy eve, ere the light had faded out from the stars of morning, and after dame Nature had donned her robe de nuit, all was vain. Joe counselled patience, and hinted that the larger species of "Cats" never ran but during a rise or fall in the river, and must then be fished for at night. One morning heavy clouds in the north and the sound of distant thunder informed us that a storm was in progress near the head waters of our stream. My rude tackle was looked after, and bait prepared in anticipation of the promised fish, which the perturbed waters of the river were to incite to motion. Night came, and I left for a spot where I knew the Cats must frequent; a deep dark hole, immediately above a sedgy flat. My patience and perseverance at length met with | their reward. I felt something very carefully examining the bait, and at last tired of waiting for the bite, struck with force. I had him, a huge fellow too; backwards and forwards he dashed, up and down, in and out. No fancy tackle had I, but plain and trustworthy, at least so I fondly imagined. At last I trailed the gentleman upon the sedge, and was upon the eve of wading in and securing him, when a splash in the water which threw it in every direction, announced that something new had turned up, and away went I, hook, and line, into the black hole below. At this moment my tackle parted, the robber-whether alligator or gar I know not-disappeared with my half captured prey, and I crawled out upon the bank in a blessed humor. My fishing was finished for the evening; but repairing the tackle as best I could, casting the line again into the pool and fixing the pole firmly in the knot-hole of a fallen tree, I abandoned it to fish upon its own hook. When I arose in the morning, a cold "norther" was blowing fiercely, and the river had risen in the world during the night. The log to which my pole had formed a temporary attachment, had taken its departure for parts unknown, and was in all human probability at that moment engaged in making an experimental voyage on account of "whom it may concern." The keen eye of Joe, who had been peering up and down the river, however discovered something upon the opposite side that bore a strong resemblance to the missing pole, and when the sun had fairly risen we found that there it surely was, and moreover its bowing to the water's edge, and subsequent straightening up, gave proof that a fish was fast to the line. The northern blast blew shrill and cold, and the ordinarily gentle current of the river was now a mad torrent, lashing the banks in its fury, and foaming over the rocks and trees that obstructed its increased volume. Joe and I looked despairingly at each other and shook our heads in silence and in sorrow. Yet there was the pole waving to and fro at times when the fish would repeat his efforts to escape; it was more than the Cup of Tantalus, and after bearing it as long as I could, I prepared for a plunge into the maddened stream. One plunge, however, quite satisfied me, I was thrown back upon the shore, cold and dispirited. During the entire day there stood or swung to and fro the wretched pole, now upright as an orderly serjeant, now bending down and kissing the waters at its feet. The sight I bore until flesh and blood could no more endure. The sun had sunk to rest, the twilight was fading away, and the stars were beginning to peep out from their sheltering places inquiringly, as if to know why the night came not on, when I, strung in soul, determined at any hazard to dare the venture. Wringing the hand of Joe, who shook his head dubiously, up the stream I bent my course until I reached a point some distance above, from which the current passing dashed with violence against the bank and shot directly over to the very spot where waved and wagged our wretched rod, cribbed by the waters, and cabined and confined among the logs. I plunged in, and swift as an arrow from the bow, the water hurried me on, a companion to its mad career. The point was almost gained, when a shout from Joe called my attention to the pole: alas the fish was gone, and the line was streaming out in the fierce wind. That night was I avenged; a huge cat was borne home in triumph. How I took it, or where, it matters not; for so much time having been occupied in narrating how we did not, I have none remaining to tell how I did. The next point was to decide as to the cooking of him. Joe advised a barbacue; a fine fellow like that, he said, with two inches of clear fat upon his back bone, would make a noble feast. Let not the "two inches of clear fat" startle the incredulous reader, for in that country of lean swine I have often heard that catfish are used to fry bacon in. But to the cooking, We cooked him that night, and we cooked him next day, And we cooked him in vain until both passed away. He would not be cooked, and was in fact much worse, and not half so honest as a worthy old gander-once purchased by a very innocent friend of mine--that was found to contain in its maw a paper embracing both his genealogy and directions with reference to the advisable mode of preparing him for the table; of which all that I remember is, that parboiling for sixteen days was warmly recommended as an initial step. Sixteen days parboiling I am convinced would but have rendered our friend the tougher. We tried him over a hot fire, and a slow one, we smoked him, singed him, and in fine tried all known methods in vain, and finally consigned him again, uneaten, to the waters. The moral of my tale, dear reader, is simply this: Waste not your precious time in taking cats, but if taken consign them at once, unsinged, to their original elements,-and so shall a great waste of time and patience be spared. GOING ABROAD. WHEN tides are observed on the water, or the wind, the philosopher looks upon them as subjects of reflection, not complaint. They may dilute puncheons of rum in the merchant's cellar, a little more than usual, by their overflow, or demolish the beaver of some parvenu, who carries his head too high; but every body else overlooks these consequences in the study of their causes. There is a tide also among men-not of their affairs, but bodies. The currents of the atmosphere have been recently suspected by Mr. Maury to be controlled by magnetism. Such seems also to be the power which is setting the stream of men to Europe at the present time. An affinity evidently existed between some magnet in the transatlantic hemisphere, and the gold and silver in our rich men's pockets. As every one goes | of course wherever his pocket does, the present emigration to the old country is easily accounted for. The reverse immigration of the Irish and other poor of Europe is as obviously produced by the lack of money in their fobs; for the attractive agent having nothing to lay hold of, they consequently fly off spontaneously, like feathers from the earth, being so light-hearted and empty handed as to excuse them from any sort of obedience to the law of gravity, sometimes, or for that matter, to any other. This subject opens so large a field, that there is danger of being lost in it. We certainly don't intend to survey it all. One powerful reason for going abroad has just been mentioned, but it is not the only one. It takes many chords to draw such a multitude so far across the ocean. Of late years the climate of this country has undergone deleterious changes most unfriendly to the constitution of a portion of our citizens. A kind of intolerable itching has taken hold most fatally of the clerical profession. Upon consultation with the faculty, we cannot learn of its appearance here till about the time of the laying of the keels of our safe, luxurious and rapid lines of packet ships. It grew worse apace on the arrival in our waters of the steamship Sirius; and the Cunard vessels introduced among our clergy generally, who resided in the vicinity of the ports at which they touched, an absolute epidemic, which Collins' line has done nothing to alleviate. The uncomfortable disorder we have imperfectly described to be a sort of itching, must not be supposed on that account to be cutaneous. It lies a good deal deeper than the skin, and is generally accompanied by a marked flightiness of the brain. But what a spirit of mercy reigns even in the sorest visitations to poor humanity! This terrible distemper has a remedy as well as the small pox. A voyage to Europe, especially when prolonged to the healthy regions of the Pontine Marshes, the Dead Sea, and Cataracts, is known to be productive of a perfect cure. But, alas! unlike the disgusting disease which we have mentioned, for this no prophylactic has been discovered. The patient can have it ever so many times, but all to no purpose. He can. be as often cured as an inebriate, yet his recovery is temporary. You may inoculate or vaccinate him with a journey to Niagara, the Lakes, and Canada--they will do little good. He will catch the contagion again as soon as exposed, even more easily than at first. A voyage to Europe will not save him from the necessity of its repetition. Its preventive power, like the Variola Vaccina, wears out in about seven years, and the process must be repeated. Now observe what a beautiful compensation is interposed under all these cruel dis-pensations. The time spent necessarily in the work of restoration, is far from being lost. Most fortunately the scene for this powerful medication is commonly where improvement in religious and moral intelligence and practice are most likely to be obtained-such as the purlieus of Paris, the morally-invigorating atmosphere of Ita-lian cities, and the very instructive and spiritual Pagan worship of the East. The other professions are not equally liable to this infection, which is another very remarkable circumstance, because if they were, they could have little hope that either their clients or their patients would emulate the good-natured example of congregations, and make up generous purses to enable them to give a desperate chase after health over all the fashionable thoroughfares recom- | from looking at the external rind as he mended in the Guide Books. The disease we have been speaking of is as singular for its cure as for its cause. It yields not at all to the art of medicine; the fine arts only possessing any efficacious force. The studio of the sculptor and the painter are found alone successful when every other study is avoided as an instrument of mischief. The balance of trade is known to be a very tender point with us Americans; in fact, it is almost the point of honor. Our merchants, it is thought by some, are managing this delicate matter most discreetly. The drift of their manoeuvre is to send out empty vessels, and bring full ones back. The idea appears ingenious, and capable of considerable expansion. Accordingly we have been helping them for some time past, by largely exporting our young men and others, pretty much in ballast, in the hope of filling up their empty noddles for a profitable return cargo. We are assured that the furnishing of the outfits in a multitude of cases has cost the country as little as the greatest patriot could wish. The only doubt is whether, on the other hand, the imports have been better. This policy has not been pursued without strenuous objections on the part of some who think that persons going abroad ought to know a little of their own country before they leave for another; and that a slight acquaintance with some foreign tongue might possibly not come amiss in gainful communications with the natives. But all such captious observations are easily refuted by the plain statements that empty hogsheads of course hold most; and none but a simpleton would send a full bucket to the well. Agreeably to these views, one has a right to think; the country must be great gainers by this intellectual commerce. Going abroad, as so many do, with a perfect qualification of ignorance of their own country, as well as every thing relating to those whither they are bound, they are totally free from prejudice, or any pre-conceived opinions. They have also obviously everything to acquire and not an idea to lose. Our country sends abroad blank paper, and it comes home, written all over with a philosophy, of which we shall, no doubt, some day understand the import. From such accomplished travellers, we shall be likely to learn everything which a deaf and dumb man with good eyesight could inform us. The outside shell of communities will be carefully reported, though with as little knowledge of their interior, as one might gain of the inside of a melon passes along the market. The traveller would probably begin by describing the wonders of the stormy sea, surprised no doubt, that our so much lauded modern art had not made a paved level of the ocean, as well as land, and provided each passenger with a pocket tempest-stopper. His astonishment increases on arrival at a French port to find there even little fellows, not taller than a yard-stick, talking French with perfect fluency, while he himself is puzzled to say a word that any soul can comprehend, though he has thumbed his dictionary and grammar for a whole college life, and once delivered an oration in that tongue, for which he received the title of "the young Lamartine." After a short experience he discovers to his disappointment, that the sky is quite blue, and the earth just as dirty as at home, and that his own mind has undergone less alteration than his purse. His new accessions are emotional, and what he first took for influx of fresh intelligence, turns out to be strange feelings only, which evaporate in the act of noting down. Accordingly, he wonders, as all his friends at home do also, at the very little he has to communicate, and is amazed at what becomes of all the impressions things are perpetually making on his eyes and ears. And the scantiness of intellectual importations-there is plenty of others-made by persons returning from abroad, has for some time been a subject of considerable speculation. We have a theory on the subject, which is, that most persons on being suddenly ushered into a strange country become galvanized. This lasts some months, during which their life is principally sensational, which is easily mistaken for a new intellectual experience. A stay of a year or two abroad will probably, and certainly a return home, gradually impair, and finally dismiss these hallucinanations. Traces of the powerful influences to which young minds are frequently subjected, and by which, alas! they are sometimes irrecoverably subdued, are afterwards perceivable for a long time, perhaps for ever. But generally, they die away, like love fits, into tender recollections of darkeyed, flower-loving grisettes, moonlight visits to the coliseum, or the transitory intoxications of masked balls, picture galleries, and the grand opera, One of the best ministrations of travel seems to be, to furnish rich materials for pleasing and poetical associations. What new ideas shall originate by a powerful culture of the foreign mind, will be best communicated by themselves in books; and we may be certain, will not be committed to their visitors to divulge. The acquisition of old ones, depends more upon the pupil than the instructor, on both sides of the ocean. But novel impressions from extraordinary scenes in nature and creation, in fact, must be made severally on every individual soul. Personal and profound experience can alone help the imagination with material to work upon; and associations derived from society and commanding events, must stimulate and give an intellectual direction to its action. First impressions of a foregn country are apt to be the best. So it is with other things. We honor young men who were delighted with their first dinner in a certain college "Commons," who shortly afterwards headed a rebellion for the reformation of the cuisine. So valuable are first thoughts, that if one neglects them, there is danger of not having any others. So true it often is, that if a man stops to think, he will possibly have nothing to say. If Mr. Dickens had not turned his thoughts immediately into ink, they would have dried up like other warm slops. Now, they will live a while, like half-grown cucumbers preserved in vinegar. Had he waited till they ripened, they would have been good for nothing. The benefit of travel depends upon the traveller. With regard to young people at a certain age, travel as well as tutors, frequently enjoy the credit that is really due to time; the youth grows wiser merely because he waxes older. However, there are doubt less useful hints, obtainable on going abroad. One is, as we have heard, the. conviction for the first time that the United States are a republic. It is not a strange thing for tender parents to be nervous on the absence of their offspring for a single night. Yet they seize at the first chance of exposing them to all the temptations of the capitals of Europe. Such is the present course of education, and the approved tuition in morality. Apparently, the hint is taken from the poultry yard. To-day the mother hen solicitously broods her offspring beneath her wings; to-morrow forcibly drives them from her. The philosophy, not in the hen, but the human, probably is this: the virtue, which is subjected to a fiery exposure, must become hardened into pure steel. The adage has it, that a rolling stone, which we take to be the traveller, gathers no moss. Therefore, it may be hoped that nothing bad will stick to it. But, unluckily, on the other hand, it may be feared for the same reason, that it will hold on to nothing good. What a man practices he will be likely to learn. If vagrancy be the constantly repeated lesson, will domestic habits be the acquisition? Some, as the French for instance, are said to place the family at the bottom of the ladder. If that is so, the question may be put, since communities are composed of families, will such a people ever rise upon it to the topmost round of purity and prosperity? There is a good deal of sense in exporting our cotton, and flour, and pork to foreign States for sale, but not quite so much is visible, I confess, in sending out our products to the World's Fair, and our non-producers with them, for no other purposes than to have them both returned to us after paying charges, in a damaged state. We are deeply indebted to the mind and heart of the old world, but these are engraved in books, which may be read by the light of the western sky. All else are sentiment and romance. When these spring up spontaneously from our native soil, let them be cherished as the choicest aliment of the soul. But I am an advocate for heavy duties at the Custom House on all importations of packages of earth from Jerusalem, and demijohns of water from the Jordan. Our rivers cannot be sanctified by tributes from foreign streams; our soul will not become more classic by being intermingled with the blood-steeped dirt of any of the ancient continents. Bottles of Helicon are stale and flat in comparison with effervescing tumblers from Saratoga Spring. Our poets will sing as well on Croton as if they slaked their thirst at the Pierian Fount itself, or even on a pipe of the true Falernian. What reason is there to suppose that persons will make a better use of the superior culture of a foreign country, while sojourning in it, than they do of its literature before they quit their own? The custom is to look at and applaud the best books, and peruse the worst. Everybody sells his gold and silver, and carries only the cheapest currency in his pocket. But something will adhere to one, will there not, who makes the fashionable tour? Undoubtedly. One cannot wander through so many fields, and bring away nothing with him. If the rose and honey-suckle do not stick to his skirts, the burr and cockle will. He may not hurt his country by bringing back an invoice of French silks and laces which pay a fine for the damage they produce; but he will inflict a deeper injury by importing a taste for them, for which no duty is exacted as a compensation. But though his country is not much benefitted by his acquisitions, the harm he occasions lights, perhaps, chiefly on himself. Such a person |