Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/149

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BLIGHTED SYCAMORES.
145

worth, and long continued labors among them, in the service of their souls.

He taught us how to live, and ah! too high
A price for knowledge, taught us how to die."




The little voyage from Hartford to Springfield is sufficiently variegated to be agreeable. The steamers employed on this part of the river are exceedingly small, in order that their light draught of water may enable them to descend a succession of rapids. The ascending passage is performed by the agency of a canal and locks, and of course requires more time, so that the twenty-six miles, which divide the two cities, occupy four hours. It was, however, rendered comparatively short, by the fair scenery of the shores, lighted up by a bright morning sun.

Among the exuberant verdure and fertility, which summer diffuses over this region, we passed one or two melancholy copses of blighted sycamores. This fine tree, in many parts of our country, seems to have been smitten by a fatal epidemic. This sad exhibition of mortality among the trees, reminded me of the following powerful and eloquent description from a traveller, in the far west, of a dead forest in the Oregon Territory.

"We had reached a current of bright, mountain water, winding through a deep, narrow, grassy valley, that cleaves the granite hills of Oregon. The morn-