“Spring returned with its showers,” and converted our Siberia, frozen and forlorn, and shut out from human intercourse, into an uncultured Eden, rich in all the majestic charms of sublime scenery, and primeval beauty and fertility. It is in her central retreat, amidst the mighty waters of the west, that nature seems in solitary grandeur, to have chosen her most favoured habitation, remote from the ocean, whose waves bear the restless sons of Europe on their voyages of discovery, invasion, and intrusion. The coasts of America are, indeed, comparatively poor, except merely on the banks of great rivers, though the universal veil of evergreens conceals much sterility from strangers. But it is in the depth of those forests, and around those sea-like lakes, that nature has been profusely kind, and discovers more charms the more her shady veil is withdrawn from her noble features. If ever the fond illusions of poets and philosophers—that Atalantis, that new Arcadia, that safe and serene Utopia, where ideal quiet and happiness have so often charmed in theory; if ever this dream of social bliss, in some new planted region, is to be realized, this unrivalled scene of grandeur and fertility bids fairest to be the place of its abode. Here the climate is serene and equal; the rigorous winters that brace the frame, and call forth the powers of mind and body to prepare for its approach, are succeeded by a spring so rapid, the exuberance of vernal bloom bursts forth so suddenly after the disappearance of those deep snows which cherish and fructify the earth, that the change seems like a magical delusion. The major saw every one enraptured, like people suddenly let out of prison; and the whole garrison seemed ripe for running wild through the woods, in pursuit of innumerable birds of passage, which had come on the wings of the genial south to resume their wonted abodes by the great lakes, where they hatch among swamps and islands without number. ------- CHAP. XLVII. Gardening and Agriculture—Return of the Author to Albany. The major rejoiced in their joy without having the least intention of indulging them either in the gay idleness, or the wild sports which the season inspired. He had been their mentor all winter, and was now about to commence their agricola.