* THE PAST OF AMERICA. HEN I think of the time, and call back to my mind the grandeur and beauty of those almost uninhabited shores; when I picture to myself the dense and lofty summits of the forest, that everywhere spread along the hills, and overhung the margins of the stream, unmolested by the axe of the settler; when I know how dearly purchased the safe navigation of that river by the blood of many worthy Virginians; when I see that no longer any aborigines are to be found there, and that the vast herds of elks, deer and buffaloes which once pastured on these hills and in these valleys, making for themselves great roads to the several salt-springs, have ceased to exist; when I reflect that all this grand portion of our Union, instead of being in a state of nature, is now more or less covered with villages, farms and towns, where the din of hammers and machinery is constantly heard; that the woods are fast disappearing under the axe by day and the fire by night; that hundreds of steamboats are gliding to and fro over the whole length of the majestic river, forcing commerce to take root and prosper at every spot; when I see the surplus population of Europe coming to assist in the destruction of the forest and transplanting civilization into its darkest recesses; when I remember that these extraordinary changes have all taken place in the short period of twenty years, I pause, wonder, and, although I know all to be fact, can scarcely believe its reality. Whether these changes are for the better or for the worse, I shall not pretend to say; but, in whatever way my conclusions may incline, I feel with regret that there are on record no satisfactory accounts of the state of that portion of the country from the time when our people first settled in it. This has not been because no one in America is able to accomplish such an undertaking. Our Irvings and our Coopers have proved themselves fully competent for the task. It has more probably been because the changes have succeeded each other with such rapidity as almost to rival the movements of the pen. However, it is not too late yet; and I sincerely hope that either or both of them will ere long furnish the generations to come with those delightful descriptions which they are so well qualified to give of the original state of a country that has been so rapidly forced to change her form and attire under the influence of increasing population. Yes; I hope to read, ere I close my earthly career, accounts from those delightful writers of the progress of civilization in our Western country. They will. speak of the Clarks, the Croghans, the Boones, and many other men of great and daring enterprise. They will analyze, as it were, into each component part, the country as it once existed, and will render the picture, as it ought to be, immortal. JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ATHENS. HE sun of Athens pierced into my windows early in the morning and would not let me sleep. It was the opening of October, and the sky was positively dazzling blue. I looked out of my window; the white houses of the long straight streets were almost painful to the sight because of the clear atmosphere, that allowed full fierce play to the glare of the sun. Lifting my eyes just above the level of the highest housetops, I see an object the sight of which sends a thrill through It is the Parthenon. I cannot see any part of the Acropolis, on which it rests; the city and its houses come between me and hide the great rock of the citadel. The Parthenon seems as though it rested on air. So clear and keen is the atmosphere that the pillars of the Parthenon appear to be within easy touch of my hand, and yet they are so far away that the divine temple looks almost as small as a child's toy. me. I resolved to rouse up little Steenie and give him his first sight of Athens and the Parthenon. Steenie Vale, I should say, was the son of Sir Thomas Vale, a distinguished official in the Indian civil service. Steenie had been sent home from India a mere infant, and brought up by relatives in England and sent to school there. His mother was dead; now his father was coming home, and intended to spend some time in Greece. I had taken charge of the boy until his father should get to Athens. Steenie proved a very wholesome companion to me in my present mood and surroundings. He was an unconscious corrective of the effusive or the sentimental. It would have been impossible for me to rave about the Acropolis while that boy was anywhere near. The streets shone with a bewildering brightness when Steenie and I set out to have a look at Athens. Our hotel was in the street of Hermes; its windows at one side looked into the great square of the Constitution, where stands the royal palace, a huge barrack built of marble already yellowing under the keen influences of air and wind and sun. Those who do not know the city may be told that modern Athens is a town of white, straight, well-paved streets running at right angles with each other. Every street which is not given up to shops is shaded by a double row of young trees, chiefly the pepper trees, which after a shower of rain send about them such a pungent odor that the unthinking wayfarer finds himself compelled to sneeze as he passes. One is reminded here of Brussels, there of Weimar. That is to say, the streets and houses occasionally remind you of these cities. The people in the streets do not remind of Brussels or Weimar, or of any city, probably, that you ever saw before. Intense activity, watchfulness, restlessness, chatter, are the characteristics of Athens. Everybody is brisk and stirring as if all his hopes in life depended on his moving quickly, gesticulating much and talking at the top of his voice. They say Athens is you not a city of Greeks at all in the true sense. | there in shaggy capotes. Greek priests with Perhaps not ethnologically: no doubt the race mild deep eyes and long dark beards are has got a little mixed; but the Athens of to- everywhere, wearing gracefully their flowing day seems to me to bear a marvellous resem- robes and their high peculiar hats. Strings blance in its crowds and their manners to the of donkeys bear along enormous piles of Athens of Aristophanes and of St. Paul. One brushwood, every stack of brushwood covunderstands Aristophanes better after half an ering each animal much more completely hour's observation of the street of Hermes or than Malcolm's soldiers could have been the old market-place just under the Acropolis. covered by Dunsinane boughs. ExtemporaNearly half the street-population-the work- neous market-places are started from moment ing, trading, donkey-driving, wood-chopping, to moment at any convenient juncture of load-carrying population—are Albanians. The streets or open space. Everywhere traffic, fustanella, or white kilt, of the traditional Al- talk, chatter, bustle, variety of costume, color banian is as common in the streets of Athens and figure; no beggars or beggary anywhere. as the private soldier's uniform in London. The servants and attendants of the royal household are always especially gorgeous in their Albanian garb. Their vast white kilts rustle with conscious grandeur, like the tartans of Vich-ian-Vohr in Waverley. Many of these heroes swagger about with belts that contain a whole armory of knives and pistols. Some of them wear shoes that turn up at the toes like those of a mediæval gallant, with the difference that the point of the toe is here adorned by a curious round ornament looking like a prickly pear or the bristly clump of an old-fashioned shaving-brush. The Albanian women of the poorer class are oddly got up. They generally wear a thick and gaudy shawl wrapped round head and shoulders, and from the shoulders down seem to be clad in nothing but a long white chemise. Not many women are in the streets. Athenian ladies seldom go out; Athenian maid-servants do on errands. Epirotes are everywhere, in great baggy trousers the waste of material in which appears quite as extravagant as that of the white stuff in the fustanella. Shepherds from the mountains are not run The two great business streets of Athens are the street of Hermes and the street of Eolus; these run across each other. The street of Hermes begins in the square of the Constitution and passes through the centre of the city out into the suburbs and the fields. About midway in its course it is crossed by the street of Eolus, which, starting from the foot of the Acropolis and passing the temple of Æolus, or Tower of the Winds, goes on until it touches the corner of the Place of Concord, a new square of the approved Parisian pattern. These are the principal business streets. Then there is the fashionable street of the Stadion, where people make a promenade of evenings, and University Street with its glittering and many-colored buildings; and there are streets of costly and luxurious private residences where the Greek or the Levantine who has made money settles himself down to display his splendor in his villa. Looking one way from the street of Hermes is seen the Acropolis; looking the other way, the steep and conical Lycabettus, with the little monastery or hermitage on its top, the light in which |