go oftener to town and dissipate at parties, whenever those rides are more amusing (say) than the one I describe to-day, or whenever city brains are better worth borrowing from than the brains of our country droppers in—such (say) as my friend the fisherman's, of whose water-life on the Hudson, as he gossipped it over our blazing wood-fire last evening, I will jot down an item or two while I remember it.
And now to my hobnail commonplaces—more sure of a pleasant understanding after this "strictly confidential" apology.
You may wonder how a zeal in our common service, should add to my experiences the new sensation of being mounted upon a cow! But this, and ride upon a camel in Asia Minor, are two of this planet's possible emotions with which I shall not pass to another star unacquainted. It was a trifle of a surprise—coming as it did after that hardest day of in-door drudgery which least prepares one for perilous adventure. You know my weekly crisis, the Thursday evening's mail—closing at Newburgh at six, and inevitably to be reached, storm or starlight, by the "final copy for the printer." I had scribbled, up to the last moment, as usual, hopped into the saddle at dusk, gallopped the four miles rather nervously for free of missing the inexorable bag, reached it, and was trotting leisurely home. It was a cloudy night—dark as half-past six had
