or twice escaping great dangers among the mountains,—­and pushed on to Italy and Greece, still walking much of the way.  In Italy he made the acquaintance of Mr. W.H.  Aspinwall, of New York, and upon his return became tutor to Mr. Aspinwall’s son.  He presently accompanied his pupil and a nephew of Mr. Aspinwall, who were going to a school in Switzerland; and after a second short tour of six months in Europe he returned to New York, and entered Mr. Aspinwall’s counting-house.  In the employ of the Pacific Steamship Company he went to Panama and resided for about two years, travelling, and often ill of the fevers of the country.  Before his return he travelled through California and Oregon,—­went to Vancouver’s Island, Puget Sound, and the Hudson Bay Company’s station there.  At the Dalles he was smitten with the small-pox, and lay ill for six weeks.  He often spoke with the warmest gratitude of the kind care that was taken of him there.  But when only partially recovered he plunged off again into the wilderness.  At another time he fell very ill upon the Plains, and lay down, as he supposed, to die; but after some time struggled up and on again.

He returned to the counting-room, but, unsated with adventure, joined the disastrous expedition of Lieutenant Strain, during which his health was still more weakened, and he came home again in 1854.  In the following year he studied law and was admitted to the bar.  In 1856 he entered heartily into the Fremont campaign, and from the strongest conviction.  He went into some of the dark districts of Pennsylvania and spoke incessantly.  The roving life and its picturesque episodes, with the earnest conviction which inspired him, made the summer and autumn exciting and pleasant.  The following year he went to St. Louis to practise law.  The climate was unkind to him, and he returned and began the practice in New York.  But he could not be a lawyer.  His health was too uncertain, and his tastes and ambition allured him elsewhere.  His mind was brimming with the results of observation.  His fancy was alert and inventive, and he wrote tales and novels.  At the same time he delighted to haunt the studio of his friend Church, the painter, and watch day by day the progress of his picture, the Heart of the Andes.  It so fired his imagination that he wrote a description of it, in which, as if rivalling the tropical and tangled richness of the picture, he threw together such heaps and masses of gorgeous words that the reader was dazzled and bewildered.

The wild campaigning life was always a secret passion with him.  His stories of travel were so graphic and warm, that I remember one evening, after we had been tracing upon the map a route he had taken, and he had touched the whole region into life with his description, my younger brother, who had sat by and listened with wide eyes all the evening, exclaimed with a sigh of regretful satisfaction, as the door closed upon our story-teller, “It’s as good as Robinson Crusoe!” Yet, with all his fondness and fitness for that kind of life, or indeed any active administrative function, his literary ambition seemed to be the deepest and strongest.