Several times have we crossed the Atlantic together for the purpose of obtaining certain information about the colonial ways, rights, manners, customs, and costumes, which could only be cleared up by papers which had been either accidentally or carelessly left behind, when the first emigrants packed their chests with the prime necessaries for subsistence on their briny journey. As we returned and again resumed our land travels, we had only proceeded a short distance before we were stopped by unceremonious and hard-visaged European highwaymen, French, Dutch, and English, with whom we have had stout fights, to prevent the party which we were convoying from being captured, plundered, and carried off to foreign lands. But, thanks to a kind Providence and the strong arms and plucky vigor of the brave chaps inside the wagon, we have been able to disperse these banditti. Two of them, however, as we have just noted, escaping from those lesser encounters, entered formally into a set contest with each other for the championship and custody of our historical party,—a contest which came off a few rods from the top of the hill, and which we halted to witness. At last, however, we have reached the summit of the great pass,—the high beacon-point of American history,—where the sleepless, vigilant eagle sits screaming, while his strong, horny claws grasp the flag-staff, from whose top the flag of the married empires is anxiously ready, day and night, to slap in its saucy, quarrelsome face every wind that whispers a provocation. Here, on this elevated plateau, we come suddenly upon a very nice party of picturesquely dressed, intelligent, earnest, and thoughtful gentlemen, looking like a large gathering of state midwives, called together to consider a most important, impending family event. Let us take breath for a few moments after our long ascent, and look more carefully at this noteworthy group. It is the 4th of July,—always a very hot day; and yet, although the weather is characteristic, and there is very warm work ahead, all the party—numbering that day fifty-one persons—seem, with few exceptions, to be very cool and unheated. They are quite unconcerned about the thunder-storm, signalled by white caps fringing the black heads which crowd the eastern horizon beyond the Atlantic, and which has shaken from its heavy locks leaden powder, which has sprinkled the exposed plantations, Breed’s Hill, Concord, Lexington, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Long Island, and even shaken its disastrous dust upon Quebec and Montreal.