Then a high wind
began in the distance among the tree-tops, and for hours continued
to grow higher. It seemed to me much such a wind as we had found
on our visit; yet here in our open chamber we were fanned only by
gentle and refreshing draughts, so deep was the canyon, so close
our house was planted under the overhanging rock.
THE HUNTER'S FAMILY
There is quite a large race or class of people in America, for whom
we scarcely seem to have a parallel in England. Of pure white
blood, they are unknown or unrecognizable in towns; inhabit the
fringe of settlements and the deep, quiet places of the country;
rebellious to all labour, and pettily thievish, like the English
gipsies; rustically ignorant, but with a touch of wood-lore and the
dexterity of the savage. Whence they came is a moot point. At the
time of the war, they poured north in crowds to escape the
conscription; lived during summer on fruits, wild animals, and
petty theft; and at the approach of winter, when these supplies
failed, built great fires in the forest, and there died stoically
by starvation. They are widely scattered, however, and easily
recognized. Loutish, but not ill-looking, they will sit all day,
swinging their legs on a field fence, the mind seemingly as devoid
of all reflection as a Suffolk peasant's, careless of politics, for
the most part incapable of reading, but with a rebellious vanity
and a strong sense of independence.
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