The idea seemed to be that some time the inhabitants of Canada might wish to govern themselves, and this was to hinder. But the inhabitants of California succeed well without any such establishment.[293] There would be the same sense in a man’s wearing a breastplate all his days for fear somebody should fire a bullet at his vitals. The English in Canada seem to be everywhere prepared and preparing for war. In the United States they are prepared for anything; they may even be the aggressors. This is a ruin kept in a remarkably good repair. There are some eight hundred or a thousand men there to exhibit it. One regiment goes bare-legged to increase the attraction. If you wish to study the muscles of the leg about the knee, repair to Quebec.[294] _Aug. 19._ _Clematis Virginiana_; calamint; _Lycopus Europeus_, water horehound. This is a world where there are flowers. Now, at 5 A. M., the fog, which in the west looks like a wreath of hard-rolled cotton-batting, is rapidly dispersing. The echo of the railroad whistle is heard the horizon round; the gravel train is starting out. The farmers are cradling oats in some places. For some days past I have noticed a _red_ maple or two about the pond, though we have had no frost. The grass is very wet with dew this morning. The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails,—aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were, a prehensile tail. Their intellect possesses merely the quality of a prehensile tail. The tail itself contracts around the dead limb even after they themselves are dead, and not till sensible corruption takes place do they fall. The black howling monkey, or caraya. According to Azara, it is extremely difficult to get at them, for “when mortally wounded they coil the tail round a branch, and hang by it with the head downwards for days after death, and until, in fact, decomposition begins to take effect.” The commenting naturalist says, “A singular peculiarity of this organ is to contract at its extremity of its own accord as soon as it is extended to its full length.” I relinquish argument, I wait for decomposition to take place, for the subject is dead; as I value the hide for the museum. They say, “Though you’ve got my soul, you sha’n’t have my carcass.” * * * * * P. M.—To Marlborough Road _via_ Clamshell Hill, Jenny Dugan’s, Round Pond, Canoe Birch Road (Deacon Dakin’s), and White Pond.