Theodore Winthrop

“ It has a strange and solemn effect to be initiated thus suddenly into the very arcana of Nature. You pass the portal, you draw aside the drapery of vines that concealed it, and are at once in the private apartments of Nature; here she is no trim, toiletted lady, such as we have made her in finished countries. There is no one here to burn up her old clothes, and her fresh attire of to-day contrasts too carelessly with the heap of cast-off garments upon which she is standing. The tropical forest is luxuriant in the extreme, but neglected. ”

“ He told me, a fact not generally known, that alligators never die, but, when they have attained with age to the due amount of experience, are translated from the narrow this life of the river to a higher sphere, — the broad eternity of the ocean. Hence occasionally the adventurous see their vast bulk rearing itself up terribly for an instant. ”

“ The athletes of the boat, with glistening skins, strained powerfully against the stream with setting-poles. We who live in the intemperate climates of temperate zones are forced to be sartorian slaves. A vicious conventionalism does not allow us to admire the nude, except in marble. ”