The Traveler's Return [pp. 373-376]

LADIES' REPOSITORY.
LADIES' REPOSITORY.
DECEMBER, 1848.
THE TRAVELER'S RETURN.
REVOLUTIONS, it is said, never go backward; but I
am not prepared to coincide literally with this ancient
maxim. Revolutions do, sometimes, go backward. Ac cordingto the old axiom in philosophy, action and reac tion are always equal. When a project, or a principle,
has been carried as far, in any given direction, as it will
bear, it begins to pendulate back again. So I found it
in my late travels.
For weeks together, through difficulties and dangers,
if not disasters, by night and day, whether foul or fair,
my party and myself had been winding our way along,
and sometimes crowding our progress, toward the land
where the sun rises. No sooner had we reached the
point of destination, and looked out, for a fortnight or
so, on the blue summits of the neighboring mountains,
and gazed upon the rolling billows of the ocean, and
seen the faces of our friends and kindred, than a turn
was taken in the tide of our inclinations. Until the moment of this change, nothing could have induced us to
forego the obvious duty of pushing eastward. So long
had we kept to this line of travel, that, at last, to continue doing so seenled to have grown into a kind of
habit. Whosoever joined or left us, or how many soever were the roads leading to places on either side of
us, it made no sensible impression on our course of
thinking, if the mere habit of going eastward had not
displaced all thinking from the business. But the current changed at last. We had gone nearly as far as we
could go, if we entertained any hopes of getting back
again; and now, having seen the east, with all its wonders, the needle of desire and expectancy suddenly
wheels upon its axis, and lies trembling with a sort of
conscious interest toward our home in the glorious west.
From this time, we had sufficient demonstration, that
revolutions do go backward. That there was a revolution-a revolution of feeling, of desire, of motion-we
knew from internal as well as external manifestations;
and that that revolution was carrying us directly back
to the point from which we started was as clear as vision.
We could now give large sums of money, for being carried back to places, which, only a little time before, we
had eagerly left, then, also, paying our way along with
money. We now pushed on to points, where, a few
weeks earlier, had we been detained an hour by any
accident, we should have suffered all the miseries of
impatience. So strangely do all things human fluctuate
about us.
But I am not now essaying to write a history, but to
catch a few visions, to realize a series of illusions, to put
down, in black and white, the flitting and airy pageants
of a sort of reverie.
Walking, one day, on the banks of the Penobscot, a
notion took me to enter a singularly looking house, that
seemed to lie upon thf water. Whether my reverie, or
dream, or trance, then began its strange work upon me,
or while I was sauntering round the various apartments,
I will not undertake to say; but it is certain that I soon
became the subject of some amusing deceptions, unless
the reader is willing to take for facts, what I shall here
relate to him.
First of all, my house began to float, turning this way
and that, till my head lost all knowledge of localities.
This, of course, added greatly to the illusions about to
be practiced on me. Sometimes I thought I was going
up stream; but this, certainly, said I, admonishingly,
cannot be so, unless there are invisible powers at work
about us. Then, more naturally, it seemed that we were
crossing the river, though we made no sensible progress
in that direction. Lastly, and much to my comfort, the
floating domicil appeared to take a settled course down
stream, which imparted signal quiet to my spirits.
Troubles, however, it is said, do not conme singly.
So I found it. We had not been long under this down ward hallucination, before a perfect tempest broke upon
the widening river-, beating upon us from behind, and
almost lifting us out of the water. Rain fell in torrents.
A wide sea yawned before us. Plunging fearlessly out
upon its troubled bosom, we bid farewell to land, with
two oceans of water contending for the mastery above
and below us. They were like two angry bullies fight ing over a timid man's shoulder.
All this time, we seemed occasionally to descry a dis tant shore, on which a town, or a village, would lie
snugly upon the edge of a little harbor. But there was
no haven for us. Our house floated on, seemingly with out point or purpose. Becoming at length wearied with
watching and conjecturing probabilities, I laid down
upon a sort of pallet, resolving to dr-own all anxiety in
sleep. How long I laid there, I shall never be able to
determine; but, strange as it may seem, when I awoke,
I found myself, after five minutes' scrambling, in the
midst of an old and familiar place, surrounded by groups
of smiling faces.
The wonders now increased upon me. I asked sonme
one, if the place were not called Portland; and a voice
from the crowd answered, "Come and see." I had no
longer satisfied myself on this question, and taken a
little time to recover from the fatigue occasioned by
these late occurrences, than another singular apparition
sprung up before me. It was a vehicle shaped not entirely unlike a goose-egg, only very much larger, with
its two ends clipped off, and furnished with outside accommnodations. The animals harnessed to it, being four
in number, were larger than the largest mrastiffs, and
resembled dogs in more than one particular. As I approached this quaint looking vehicle, a door opened
suddenly upon the side of it, and made me think of the
celebrated Grecian horse, that stood before the walls of
Troy, in which there was a secret side-door, provided
for armed soldiers to issue fromn the bowels of the wooden animal in time of battle.
But-Troy never saw such a hubbub as I now experienced. Entering that side-door, I sat down, when
round and round the goose-egg whirled, then away it
went, up, down, across, over, under, through, till we
had apparently made a circuit of some hundred and
fifty miles. Only think of it, reader! One hundred
and fifty miles, shut up in the interior of an egg-shell,
drawn over a rough country by two brace of fleet quadrupeds, and all the time so magically handled, as to
seem to be riding round a panorama of real places, once
as familiar to you as the faces of your own children!
First of all came, or seemed to come, a well-known
place called the "Empire," where, in other days, I had
joyed and suffered, and that, too, with many loved ones
now not among the living. Then Lewiston, where the
Androscoggin makes a fearful plunge, thus presenting
one of the most splendid cascades known in geography.
Next Winthrop, a lovely place, lying, in all quietness,
373
I
i