Before, I had had the bad taste to prefer the trout, despite the solemn and eloquent remonstrances of the _habitues_, to whom the superiority of white-fish seemed a cardinal point of faith.
I am here reminded that I have omitted that indispensable part of a travelling journal, the account of what we found to eat.

I cannot hope to make up, by one bold stroke, all my omissions of daily record; but that I may show myself not destitute of the common feelings of humanity, I will observe that he whose affections turn in summer towards vegetables should not come to this region, till the subject of diet be better understood; that of fruit, too, there is little yet, even at the best hotel tables; that the prairie chickens require no praise from me, and that the trout and white-fish are worthy the transparency of the lake waters.
In this brief mention I by no means intend to give myself an air of superiority to the subject.

If a dinner in the Illinois woods, on dry bread and drier meat, with water from the stream that flowed hard by, pleased me best of all, yet, at one time, when living at a house where nothing was prepared for the table fit to touch, and even the bread could not be partaken of without a headache in consequence, I learnt to understand and sympathize with the anxious tone in which fathers of families, about to take their innocent children into some scene of wild beauty, ask first of all, "Is there a good, table ?" I shall ask just so in future.

Only those whom the Powers have furnished with small travelling cases of ambrosia can take exercise all day, and be happy without even bread morning or night.
Our voyage back was all pleasure.

It was the fairest day.