go,--fortunately, perhaps, as it shortened the duration of the expedition. We went by train to Albany, where we took deck passage on a towing steamer for New York. The run was longer than that of a passenger steamer, so that the New York police who were warned to look out for us by the post, had given us up when we arrived and search was diverted in another direction. We arrived at New York with my funds already nearly exhausted by the food expenses _en route_, and my companion's courage had already given out--he was homesick and discouraged, and announced his determination to return home. My own courage, I can honestly say, had not failed me,--I was ready for hardship, but to go alone into a strange world damped my ascetic ardor and confounded all the plans I had made. I yielded, and with the last few "York shillings"[1] in my pocket bargained for a deck passage without board on a barge back to Albany. It was midsummer, and the sleeping on some bags of wool which formed the better part of the deck-load gave me no inconvenience, and the want of provisions of any sort was remedied as well as might be by a pile of salt codfish which was the other part of the deck-load, and which was the only food we had until our arrival at Albany, which we reached at night after a voyage of twenty-four hours. We slept under a boat overturned by the shore that night until the rising tide drove us out, when we decided to take the road back to Schenectady on foot, through a wide pine forest which occupied the intervening country, a distance of about sixteen miles. Passing on the way a stable in which there was nobody, not even a beast, we turned in to sleep away the darkness, and I remember very well what a yielding bed a manger filled with salt gave me. With the dawn we resumed the journey, and by the way ate our fill of whortleberries, with which the forest abounded. [Footnote 1: 12½ cents each.]