) The moon in her third quarter,
and up nearly all night. And there, as I look eastward, my long-absent
Pleiades, welcome again to sight. For an hour I enjoy the soothing
and vital scene to the low splash of waves--new stars steadily,
noiselessly rising in the east.
As I cross the Delaware, one of the deck-hands, F. R., tells me how
a woman jump'd overboard and was drown'd a couple of hours since. It
happen'd in mid-channel--she leap'd from the forward part of the
boat, which went over her. He saw her rise on the other side in the
swift running water, throw her arms and closed hands high up, (white
hands and bare forearms in the moonlight like a flash,) and then she
sank. (I found out afterwards that this young fellow had promptly
jump'd in, swam after the poor creature, and made, though
unsuccessfully, the bravest efforts to rescue her; but he didn't
mention that part at all in telling me the story.)
SWALLOWS ON THE RIVER
_Sept. 3_--Cloudy and wet, and wind due east; air without palpable
fog, but very heavy with moisture--welcome for a change. Forenoon,
crossing the Delaware, I noticed unusual numbers of swallows in
flight, circling, darting, graceful beyond description, close to the
water. Thick, around the bows of the ferry-boat as she lay tied in her
slip, they flew; and as we went out I watch'd beyond the pier-heads,
and across the broad stream, their swift-winding loop-ribands of
motion, down close to it, cutting and intersecting. Though I had seen
swallows all my life, seem'd as though I never before realized their
peculiar beauty and character in the landscape.
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