the muffled roar of whose morning guns, had but now spoken audibly to our fleshy ears of the body, deafening the subtler organs of the soul.

And this contiguity it is of contrasts which lends such a charm to the landscape scenery of America. Despite the newness, the raw, just finished look of the towns, to which Dickens has so humorously alluded in one of his spicy caricatures, there is every where in the country, so soon as the wanderer's foot has left the pavement, and before his ears have lost the din of the city, an aspect of untutored and almost primeval rusticity; a moss-grown charm of sylvan eld, that involuntarily recalls the mind, if not to Arcadian fancies, at least to the stranger realities of the stupendous change which has occurred in these most familiar scenes within the narrow compass of two centuries.

No other country in the world can point to scenes of almost primitive nature, still haunted by some of the shyest and wildest of the animal creation, in so near contiguity to the abodes of a civilization almost super-civilized, and more than Sybarite luxuriousness.

All these things, or many of them-for Boz had not yet spoken to his world-wide audience, and the lucubrations of Martin Chuzzlewit slept yet unformed in the womb of futurity-we babbled of, as we rode along, careless of time, and giving ourselves up wholly to the enjoyment of the pleasant season, and to the impulsive thoughts which sprang from each new object, that presented itself to our admiration or our wonder.

Morning had melted before the fervors of hot noon, as we pursued our way, heedless, if not unconscious, of distance; and at length, as we reached a loftier summit of the Palisades, beyond which the continuous line of columnar ramparts, whence their familiar name, is interrupted by a deep wooded lap or basin, opening softly to a cove of the great river, we paused, drew bridle, and sat still.

At first, we halted, on impulse only, to gaze with earnest eyes on the splendid prospect which greeted us; for we had advanced so far, that we might behold the huge barriers of the Hudson Highlands upheaving themselves in vast, solemn, purple masses before our eyes, while above them, and through the breaks in their undulating outline. the triple summit of the distant Kaatskills slept in a soft, cerulean shadow against the bright horizon. Anon, we might see the fleecy masses of clouds gather, and thicken and grow dark, over the distant mountains, until their form, their dimen

sions, their very presence, were swallowed up in the great inky shroud, whence issued at intervals a low, hoarse, grumbling moan, preceded by a momentary livid streak veining the blackness; by which we knew that the thunder-spirits had not deserted their old haunts in the Highlands.

Perhaps it was the distant growlings of the storm, perhaps the fidgetiness of our horses-for that animal, as I have often observed, is singularly sensitive to the presence of electricity in the atmosphere

that recalled us from the contemplation of the noble view to more sublunary things. But when we were so awakened, and found our good steeds bathed in dark sweat, and that sweat chafed into white creamy lather, wherever bridle rein or stirrup leather had turned the hairthough we had not in the last five miles exceeded a foot's pace-we resolved to make a brief halt in that pleasant place, both for the refreshment of our animals, and the consolation of our inner selves, with such slight provisions as our sandwich boxes and hunting-flasks might furnish. Nigh twenty years have elapsed since I saw that spot; in all human probability I shall never see it again; and, were I to see it, I should most likely fail to recognize a single feature; but by some strange freak of memory, which has slurred over in oblivion a hundred nearer and more important matters, I remember every small particular of that scene, every accident of light and shade, as clearly as if I had looked upon it yesterday. Yet it was nothing. Nothing but the like of which we all look upon every day, without notice enough, even, that we should say we forget it.

A large white-oak tree shed a wide shadow over the green sward, quite to the edge of the precipice; and above the oak, above all the surrounding trees of the somewhat stunted forest, towered the gigantic skeleton of what had once been a colossal white-pine, now barkless and weather-beaten, but still erect and stately, and pointing with its sapless arms to the four winds of heaven. Above the summit of the pine, again, the work of man's busy hands, rose a tall spear, secured with bolts and braces, and capped by what closely resembled a huge extinguisher of bright tin-the whole forming, strangely out of place in that wild bit of unshorn forest, one of the triangulation stations of the coast survey, which was then laboring, with its unequalled industry and science, on that portion of the Atlantic sea-board. Immediately in front of us, as we sat under the cool freshness of the oak, after picketing our horses duly wa

tered at the neighboring brook, and carefully rubbed down; at about thirty feet distant lay the sheer brink of the precipice, with its verge undulating and irregular, as the height of the columnar rocks forming its face, varied and fringed by a verdure of ferns, mullens, and other coarse shrubby plants which love to cast anchor in the crevices of any rocky soil. A little way to the left, forming the highest point of the Palisades, just where the verdant gap I have described began to descend abruptly to the northward, one splintered pinnacle of gray stone stood up, some twenty feet ahove the green sward on the land side, some twice three hundred above its base on the river shore; close to the rock a stunted juniper shot out of a crevice in the cliff's face and twisted itself upward toward the light, mantled and draperied with the most luxuriant profusion of beautiful deciduous ivy; and between the two there protruded, considerably beyond the precipice, what resembled a gigantic spout of massive timber. It was, indeed, no less than the hollowed trunk of a huge tree, polished as smooth as if it had been finished in a lathe, fastened to the rocks by great braces, and extending into the clear space many feet over the sheer walls of basaltic limestone. In a word, reader, it was what I had never seen, at least in that shape, before, a timber slide, prepared for launching the hewn trunks over the brink so that they should fall into the trough fashioned to receive them, two or three hundred feet below, and so rush into the bosom of the receiving river. To contemplate this, which had waked my special wonder, after the edge of our appetites had been appeased by the modicum of ham sandwiches, and the more than modest sip of brown sherry which our flasks afforded, I crawled forth gingerly and cautiously, and, leaning over the trunk, grappling with both hands the tough roots and knotty branches of the stunted shrubs on the edge, gazed down into the abyss.

At about midway of the height, there commenced a series of slopes, a sort of natural glacis, formed by the accumulation of the debris, which had crumbled down, winter after winter, through uncounted ages, from the crags, under the combined action of frost and water; and these were covered, for the most part, by a scattered growth of young wood.

At the water's edge was a little dock, with a small dwelling and storehouse, and a couple of sloops lying at anchor, all dwindled, by the perpendicular distance, into the semblance of baby-houses, and children's cock-boats. The slide had evidently fallen into disuse, owing, doubtless,

to the consumption of the woods fitted for its purpose in the vicinity; for the trough below was in a state of disrepair, little removed from ruin, some young green saplings having shot forth between its decayed timbers; and no piles of logs or lumber testified to its present activity.

After a little while, as my eye became accustomed to distances, after the first dizziness had passed over, and the principal features of the spectacle had become familiar, I began somewhat more curiously to examine and pry into details.

The face of the precipice before me was any thing rather than sterile or naked. At every few feet of distance, great perpendicular fissures and crevices ran between the pillared rocks, which time and the gradual decay of vegetable matter had filled with rich, black, fertile soil; and out of this, chance sown, most probably, by the thrush and the blue jay, shrubs and trees had taken root years ago, and now stretched their green garlands and tortuous branches into mid air, the secure home of unnumbered warblers.

As I leaned forward, more and more taken with the view, a clod of earth or block of stone, dislodged by my movements was detached from the brink, dropped plump down, crashing through the branches of a white-oak growing some fifty feet below, and spun away, dwindling in size, and twinkling in the sunlight as it fell.

Not long, however, did my eye dwell on it; for, as the first crash sounded from the oak boughs, an enormous pair of chestnut-colored pinions were unfurled, just in the shadow under it, and, with a shrill, fierce, barking scream, an eagle—a superb, full-plumed, Golden Eagle-shot out from its eyrie in the inaccessible rocks, and soared calmly and fearlessly, as it seemed, over the blue river, upon which the now meridian sun drew a gigantic picture of its wide, expanded vans.

I know not wherefore, or with what intent for those were the good old days of antique Gotham, when something of the slumberous style, derived from its Dutch Patriarchs, so quaintly pictured by the humorous pen of Irving, still characterized its people, ere the word Rowdy was yet invented, when the B'hoys were innocent babies, and folk would as easily have thought of riding about in complete suits of steel, as of carrying weapons for defence I know not, I say, wherefore, or to what intent, but we had a pair of pistols with us; I believe we had brought them as a means of awakening the mocking answers of those airy voices, which men are fond to fancy echoes.

At all events, a pistol I had, and thought

less, on the impulse of the moment I discharged it at the noble bird. The sound attracted his attention; I think, moreover, that the bullet whistled near him, for he made a short cast upward, flapped his wings angrily over his back, and rose in short gyrations directly above my head.

But, even then, neither in his motions nor his manner, was there the least show of haste or perturbation. He sailed slowly round and round; I could see him turn his hooked beak from side to side, as he brought his piercing eyes to bear on the intruder, and I seemed to catch an intelligent glance from those fierce, flame-colored orbs, which can gaze undazzled on the sun at his meridian.

Round and round he floated, with no visible movement of his mighty wings, though one could see that he steered himself with his broad, fan-like tail, scaling the air, ring above ring, in those small concentric circles, as if he were mounting some viewless, winding, Jacob's ladder, until at length he literally vanished from our sight, concealed from vision by no jealous, intervening cloud, nor swallowed up in any blaze of living light too effulgent to be braved by mortal eyes of man, but lost in immeasurable distance.

Once, after our weary eyes had ceased straining themselves in vain, his resonant defying cry came clanging down to us from the depths of the, to him, not intrenchant ether, as if challenging us to meet the radiance of his clear eye, which probably distinguished us with ease, where himself to our utmost powers invisible.

That was the first time of my beholding, on this side the Atlantic ocean, that noblest of the feathered race, bird of poets and emperors, the golden cagle; and but twice, since that day, has his form met my eyes, which ever greet him with something of half-chivalric and loyal devotion, something of half superstitious veneration.

Once, he was wheeling, like the incarnate spirit of the thunderstorm, while the clouds were as mirk as midnight above us, and the lightning was blazing as if at white heat, and the thunder, tearing our ears asunder, rebellowed from Bullhill and Crownest, and the stern heights of Thunderberg triumphant amid the tempest.

The canvas of a superb topsail schooner was split to ribbons in an instant, and a tall sloop was dismasted by a gust that came tearing down a gorge in the hills, and drove a long streak of snowy foam before it across the moaning river; but not a feather did it ruffle of the royal fowl, lending only, as it seemed, new transport to his warrior spirit, new power to his exulting flight.

Once again I beheld him-I say him, for it always seems to me the same eagle, whom I first saw, long years ago,-sailing through the dark mists over the purple moors of Cumberland and Yorkshire, where Pennigant and Ingleborough look down from their misty peaks on the sources of the silver Aire, or the bare crags of Cader Idris afford his chosen eyrie to the nursling of the storm. Once again I beheld him, above a thousand miles aloof, where the untrodden heights of the La Cloche mountains show their almost perennial snows to the voyager on the stormy waters of Lake Huron, and the congenial climate and sublime wilderness of the Northwest acknowledge him for their appropriate sovereign.

I knelt in the bow of a birch canoe, propelled by the silent paddle of an Ojibwa Indian, up the still waters of a winding tributary of the Du François River, the outlet of Lake Nipissing, with a heavy double-barrel in my hand, keeping a bright look-out, as we doubled every headland of the tortuous stream, for the ducks, which kept rising in great flocks before us.

Suddenly there came a low tap against the side of the canoe, and a guttural exclamation-" How! mig-a-zeë. An eagle."

I looked up, and there he sat, erect, majestic, looking supremely proud and bold, on the very pinnacle of a dead pine tree, not above a hundred yards distant from us. He saw us clearly, for he turned his head, and looked at us steadily with both his great bright eyes; I could see, or fancied I could see, their tawny glare at that distance. Then he lifted one large yellow claw, and scratched his head, dropped it again to his perch, drew himself up and shook himself, till every plumelet seemed in its place, even and sleek as the coat of a high conditioned racer, arched his proud neck, and gazed about him, without a sign of alarm, as if he saw and dared us to injure him.

For me, he might defy me with impunity; for I felt in his presence, as Marcellus toward the Ghost of Hamlet, that I should

"do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence;"

and, even had any shot-gun contained the means of harming him at that distance, which it did not, I should as soon have thought of firing at a friend, as at that dauntless creature.

Not so, however, my Ojibwa. There are, to the Indian, few prizes more esteemed than the tail-feathers of the wareagle. It is said that, on the prairies, a good horse has been bartered for that precious ornament, worn only, as among

the Scottish Highlanders, by the great chiefs of the people.

Such a temptation as this was to be resisted, at no price; and compensation, such as mine, would to my copper-colored friend have appeared the last descending grade of imbecility.

Seeing, therefore, the long rifle slowly coming up to the level, and knowing how deadly was that aim when once assured, I bided my time, and, just as his finger pressed the trigger, sent forth, from all my lungs, a tremendous whoop. The rifle flashed, and splinters flew from the stem of the tree, immediately behind the spot where, a moment before, the imperial bird was sitting.

But there he sat no longer. The very second before the ball was sped he flapped his wings once, and launched himself into the air with one indignant scream; another instant, and a cannon shot would not have reached him.

Words cannot express the glare of indignation which my Indian comrade launched at me, in reward of that untimely whoop. Í verily believe, if he had suspected it to be premeditated with intent to frustrate his shot, he would have tried to take summary vengeance on me; but, as it was, I continued to look so stupid, and pretended to be so much disappointed, that he set it down to the score of impatience and premature exultation, and contented himself with rating me soundly, and involving himself for the remainder of the day in an impenetrable veil of sulkiness, evinced by his not allowing me to get a shot at duck, and by my going in consequence supperless to bed.

And this brings me definitively to my eagles. Of this mighty fowl of the rapacious order, we possess, in the United States, three distinct varieties; perhaps, including Texas and the newly acquired Mexican dominions, we may lay claim to a fourth, in the Brazilian Caracara Eagle, Polyborus Vulgaris, which is stated to inhabit regions, as far northward as Florida. This is, however, but a poor devil of a bird, to be dignified by the name of Eagle, not equalling the osprey, or common fish-hawk in size, and in his habits of foul and promiscuous feeding little superior to the squalid tribe of vultures.

Of him we will none. Sacer Esto, he and the foul Cathartes, the blackwinged Scavenger of the fowls of air!

Of our own three eagles, one is peculiar to ourselves; the largest and most powerful by far, though not the noblest either in bearing or habit, the magnificent bird. discovered by the immortal Audubon and named of him after the father of his country, Falco Washingtoni.

The history of the great forest-naturalist's discovery of this eagle, as related in his own graphic words, is equal in interest to the most exciting romance; while it displays, in the boldest and most vivid light, the extraordinary powers of vision. of comparison, of judgment, of memory, possessed by that eagle-eyed man, that intuitive discerner of great Nature's secret mysteries.

Gliding along in his canoe at sunset. over the placid bosom of one of our mighty western rivers, the poet-painter of the feathered race beholds an unknown wing, of vaster extent than that of any established eagle, gliding immeasurably high above him, painted in dark relief against the sun-illumined sky-the huge crooked bill, the plumage uniform in hue, dark chocolate, tinged with a coppery lustre.

Thus much only, and scarcely thus much. Yet from that one fleeting glimpse, the native genius of the wilderness, with self-confidence equalled only by the perfectness of his intuition, pronounced this half-seen bird, not only a nondescript Eagle, but a nondescript Fishing-Eagle, but the greatest of all Eagles, classified it, named it, "the Bird of Washington," the largest and most powerful of the true eagles, and such it has proved to be-for the Condor of the Andes, and the Lamergeyer of the Alps, are obscene carrion-eating vultures, in no sort birds of Jove.

School naturalists and in-door theorists laughed at the woodman-poet, and for many a day, the Bird of Washington was held as much a myth as the roc of Sinbad, or the winged hound of the Anmaspians.

Years passed, and still the indomitable explorer wandered far, wandered near, with his portfolio and his gun, braving the hyperborean cold of Newfoundland and Labrador, braving the ague-breeding heat of Mississippian swamps and bayous, in patient search, in exulting fruition of the wonders of God's creation.

Years passed, without his meeting any more that once seen, never to be forgotten. eagle; still his faith was unshaken in the Bird of Washington; and his faith had its reward.

Navigating, leagues and leagues away from the region where he first beheld his nondescript, another mighty river of the West, thinking perhaps at the time of nothing less than the unknown eagle, his all-observant eye fell on the difficult rockeyrie of some great bird of prey, and the crags spattered with white droppings, and the shores strewn with the scales and exuviæ of half-eaten fishes.

It was not the haunt of our own white