At last we reached South River (in Southern New Jersey), and just here was no place to tarry, unless to court melancholy. It was not required that my companion should enumerate the reasons why the one-time farm along the river-bank had been abandoned. A glance at the surrounding fields told the whole story. There was, indeed, barrenness,—and very different, this, from what obtains in localities near by to which the same term is applied. In the so-called pine barrens there is a luxuriant vegetation; but here about the deserted house and out-building there was nothing but glistening sand, moss, and those pallid grasses that suggest death rather than life, however feeble. And how widely different is it to be surrounded by ruin wrought by man, and to be in a forest where man has never been! Could I not have turned my back upon the scene and looked out only upon the river, the day’s pleasure would have vanished. But we were soon away, and a naturalist’s paradise was spread before us. What constitutes such a place? Not necessarily one where man has never been: it will suffice if Nature has withstood his interference; and this is true of these pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this silent battle-field where the struggle for existence never ceases, and yet, as we see it, peaceful as the fleecy clouds that fleck an April sky. Though the wind that swept the wide reach of waters close at hand still smacked of wintry weather, there was a welcome warmth on shore. The oaks even hinted of the coming leaf. Their buds were so far swollen that the sharp outlines of bare twigs against the sky were rounded off. The ruddy stems of the blueberry bushes gave to the river-bank a fire-like glow, and yet more telling was the wealth of bright golden glow where the tall Indian grass waved in all its glory. The repellent desolation of midwinter, so common to our cold-soil upland fields, was wholly wanting here; for, while nothing strongly suggested life as we think of it, even in early spring, yet nothing recalled death, the familiar feature of a midwinter landscape.