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Untitled Article
Ay , boy , and the mischievous animal gave me full half an hour ' s work to catch him again , and another half hour to collect the saddlegear which he had scattered far and wide . Thou wert an excellent traveller , boy , as ail children are when they are rationally treated . No . word of complaint ever passed thy lips , though thou wert afterwards both cold and hungry in the barren pathways of the mountain range , where the cold winds whistled , and the running streams froze as we lay by their edges , fireless , and the rough coat 3 of the shivering mules and horses gave forth a torrent of fiery sparks whenever the hand passed over them . It is good that human beings should move from place to place , and prove all varieties of life , for only thus can their prejudices be extinguished .
And , father , do you remember the guanaco which you shot at the ford of the river , as he came down to drink ? Ay , boy , and his flesh was roasted for supper , and we found it delicious . How the fire-flame roared round-the old rock in the rushing breeze , as we sat cross-legged on our saddle-gear , at supper . Our muleteers sang patriotic songs , till El Penon Rasgado rang again , and the wine-cup meanwhile passed merrily round . Oh ! but there
was something rapturous in that life , with the blue starry heavens above , and the river making wild music below , even though no level spot of ground could be found on which a man of six feet in length could comfortably stretch himself , without feeling the inequality of surface make his bones ache .
But , father , you remember the next night , when we stopped at the dry bed of the mountain torrent , where the coarse sand was heaped in drifts ? Ay , boy , that was indeed a luxury . -We nestled into it till it fitted us like one of Arnot ' s beds , just as the sparrows do in the dusty road in summer . Our sleep was sound , for exercise had earned it . Oh ! that indeed was life . Would that we might live it over again for a time ! Often as I lie waking within the haunts of civilization is that sand bed of the dry torrent present to me . I see the forms of our bodies printed in the flickering glare of the fire-light , gleaming on the thorny shrubs that served to sift but not to keep off the mountain blast , which yet howled angrily that it could not pierce the wetted poncho , which bade it defiance with its icy surface .
When ah all we travel here , father 1 There is no travelling here , boy . Thou rnayst move from house to house , or from town to town , but where is the excitement of travel when you are positively sure that a house and a bed , and a supper , await the close of each day ; and , in addition to that , a certain number of interested people , whose only value for you is the profit you can help them to ? No , noj the true delicious excitement of travel must ever consist in its uncertainty , —the hunting after the unknown . English travelling is like English hunting ; the result is settled and known beforehand . To be conscious of this is to feel like a locomotive machine . But thou hast eaten thy bread , therefore let us depart . * Junius Rbdivivus . ( To be continued . * )
Untitled Article
T 70 Juvenile Lessons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 770, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/38/
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