Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/101

 compliment given below,—"I shall esteem the town fortunate that secures his services." That town, as it proved, was his native Concord.

Thursday, September 12.

Finding our boat safe in its harbor under the Uncannunuc Mountain, with a fair wind and the current in our favor, we commenced our return voyage at noon, sitting at our ease and conversing, or in silence watching for the end of each reach in the river, as a bend concealed it from view. As the season was now farther advanced, the wind blew steadily from the north, and we were enabled to lie upon our oars without much loss of time when it pleased us. The lumbermen throwing down wood from the top of the high bank, thirty or forty feet above the water, that it might be sent down the river, paused

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