ion? Ah I
10ft
ys, we well knew all this had been done; and the thought that we were still keep ing them in suspense that we were still venturing farther and farther away could not but make us sad. But, withal, as I said before, it was a pleasant sadness ,- for we secretly felt a delight in going over new scenes beholding new objects. More over, we were now in good health; our constitutions felt vigorous; and this tended to raise our spirits.
What an eventful year had the past one been! Through what scenes of trial, privation, suffering, and peril had we not passed! And yet, amid all, how had we been sustained by the hand of Omnipo tence! How had we been lifted up and borne forward over the quicksands of despair! And when all appeared an end less, rayless night, how had our trembling souls been rejoiced by the sudden light of hope beaming upon our pathway, and showing us a haven of rest!
But where would another year find us? In what quarter of the habitable globe, aud under what circumstances? Should we be among the living, or the dead? The dead! What a solemn thought, to think that our bones might be reposing in the soil of the stranger thousands of miles from all we loved, and from all that loved us! What a startling idea! And vet, in our journeyings, how indifferent, how careless had we been of life! With what fooihardiness had we even dared death to meet us! And still, with all the frightful warnings of the past before us, how recklessly were we plunging on to new scenes of danger! Why did we not turn now, and bend our steps homeward? Had we not seen enough, suffered enough, to satisfy the craving desires of youth?
Hume! what a blessed word of a thou sand joys! With what pleasing emotions the thought would steal upon our senses! What a world of affection was centered there! What happy faces the thought re called, and how we longed to behold them! Longfed, ytt took the very course to put vime and distance between us and them! A.nd this to gratify what our sober reason told us what was only a foolish, boyish passion a craving love of adventure!
Home.! In that word 1 beheld the loved faces of my parents. In that word I be
held the welcome visages of my friends. In that word, more than all, I beheld the sweet, rv^lancholy countenance of Lilian!
Lilian! how this name stirred the, se cret emotions of a passionate soul ' H;\d I forgotten her? Had I, through all the varied scenes I had passed, for a moment lost sight of her lovely countenance of her sweet eyes beaming upon me the warm affections of an ardent soul? No I had not forgot, I never could forget, her. She was woven among the libers of my existence. To tear her hence, would be to rend and shatter the soul itself. Thou sands of miles away, she was not absent. She was with me in all my trials, suffer ings and perils. Present by day, with her eyes of love. Hovering around me in the still watches of night, as it were the guar dian angel of my destiny. Lilian was loved. Time and distance proved it. Loved with a heart that could never for sake never so love another. I had done her wrong. But should God spare my life, and permit us again to meet, how quickly, by every means in my power, would I strive to repair it.
Such and similar were our thoughts, as we again bent our steps upon a long jour ney. But I will not test your patience, reader, with more. Neither am I going to weary you with along detail of common place events. In other words, I am not going to describe our journey to the south. Like similar journeys, it was full of fatigue, with here and there an incident, or a curi osity, perhaps a danger which, were I making an official report to government, would be necessary to note but over which you, doubtless, would yawn and call the writer stupid.
Suffice it, then, that with me you let a year pass unnoted. That you imagine us having gone a thousand miles into the heart of Mexico, and, heartily sick and dis gusted with our travels, the people, and for the most part the country, you now rind us on our glad journey to the north fully determined, in our own minds, from this time forward, to let such as choose go among barbarians worse than savages, so they seek not us for companions. From this sweeping clause of condemnation, lei me save the Mexican ladies; who, for the most part, exercise Christian virtues
