Ohio, the State of 'the Beautiful River,' has as yet woodland enough to satisfy the most extravagant desire. I have been travelling many days along this untrodden highway; the giant trees almost constantly interlocking their branches over head, except when the enclosed ten-acre lot of stumps, and the block-house dwelling of some hardy emigrant break the monotony. And I expect it will be the same for several weeks to come, until I emerge into daylight on the borders of some prairie. I hope those weeks will be many; for it is really pleasant, plodding along with no company but these tall beeches and maples, and no conversation save such as the birds and I, each in our own language, hold with one another. I have learned some new movements in music too; for when the little choristers do me the honor to stop and examine my physical appearance, and when they express their surprise, or pleasure, or indignation, by interrogatory trills, or by angry chromatic passages of unimaginable rapidity, always accompanied by appropriate gesticulation, it would be exceedingly impolitic in me not to answer in numbers and melody. I am afraid they do not understand me; or else they doubt my word, when I assure them of the kindest treatment, if they will indulge me with a nearer view of their wings and eyes. The mind is bewildered when it tries to think of the solitude that has reigned here; how in winter and summer, year after year, farther back than the imagination can reach, these trees have grown, wrestled with the whirlwind, and fallen; how those clouds have given their rain, the sun his light, and the flowers their fragrance, _alone_! Forms, colors, and sounds of beauty and sweetness have sprung up and lived here, when there was no eye or ear to receive them, and be made happy. Nature has put on her robe of grace; has breathed her pleasant odors on every breeze; has tenderly cherished her delicate plants; and has most beautifully decked herself, as though for the embrace of man. Truly may we ask, 'For whom were all these things made? If for man, why was this waste?' It cannot be; and certainly not for any inferior being. If it is mortifying to think that all things were not made to minister unto us; that we are but a part of the great machine, a principal, though not an indispensable one; that the happiness of birds and all animals is as important in the view of the Giver of Happiness, as ours; it is nevertheless pleasant to feel that we are connected with the lower orders of existences by a kind of fellow-feeling, in that we both partake of common pleasures, and that no bounty which has been given to one has not also been given to the other.