EARLY this morning, as we were rolling up our buffaloes and loading our boat amid the dew, while our embers were still smoking, the masons who worked at the locks,and whom we had seen crossing the river in their boat the evening before while we were examining the rock,came upon us as they were going to their work, and we found that we had pitched our tent directly in the path to their boat. This was the only time that we were observed on our camping-ground. Thus, far from the beaten highways and the dust and din of travel, we beheld the country privately, yet freely, and at our leisure. Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveler to stare at her, but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating and adorning it, and is as free to come and go
as the zephyr.

As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sunrise, the smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was moping along its edge, or stood probing the mud for its
food, with ever an eye on us, though so demurely at work, or else he ran along over the wet stones like a wrecker in his storm-coat, looking out for wrecks of
snails and cockles . Now away he goes, with a limping flight, uncertain where he will alight, until a rod of clear sand amid the alders invites his feet ; and now our steady
approach compels him to seek a new retreat. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the other elements ; the relic
of a twilight antediluvian age which vet inhabits these bright American rivers with us Yankees . There is something venerable in this melancholy and contemplative
race of birds, which may have trodden the earth while it was yet in a slimy and imperfect state. Perchance their tracks, too, are still visible on the stones . It still lingers
into our glaring summers, bravely supporting its fate without sympathy from man, as if it looked forward to some second advent of which he has no assurance. One
wonders if, by its patient study by rocks and sandy capes, it has wrested the whole of her secret from Nature yet . What a rich experience it must have gained, standing on
one leg and looking out from its dull eye so long on sunshine and rain, moon and stars! What could it tell of stagnant pools and reeds and dank night-fogs! It would
be worth the while to look closely into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes its dull, yellowish, greenish eye . Methinks my own soul
must be a bright invisible green. I have seen these birds stand 1)v the half dozen together in the shallower water along the shore, with their bills thrust into the mud at
the bottom, probing for food, the whole head being concealed, while the neck and body formed an arch above the water.

Cohass Brook, the outlet of Massabesic Pond, -which last is .5 five or six miles distant, and contains fifteen hundred acres, being the largest body of fresh water in
Rockingham County, -- comes in near here from the cast. Rowing between Manchester and Bedford, we passed, at an early hour, a ferry and some falls, called
Goff's Falls, the Indian Cohasset, where there is a small village, and a handsome green islet in the middle of the stream. From Bedford and Merrimack have been
boated the bricks of which Lowell is made. About twenty years before, as they told us, one Moore, of Bedford, having clay on his farm, contracted to furnish
eight millions of bricks to the founders of that city within two years . He fulfilled his contract in one year, and since then bricks have been the principal export from these
towns. The farmers found thus a market for their wood, and when they had brought a load to the kilns, they could cart a load of bricks to the shore, and so make a
profitable day's work of it. Thus all parties were benefited. It was worth the while to see the place where Lowell was " dug out ." So, likewise, Manchester is
being built of bricks made still higher up the river at Hooksett.

There might be seen here on the bank of the Merrimack, near Goff's Falls, in what is now the town of Bedford, famous " for hops and for its fine domestic manufactures,"
some graves of the aborigines. The land still bears this scar here, and time is slowly crumbling the bones of a race. Yet, without fail, every spring, since they first fished and hunted here, the brown thrasher has heralded the morning from a birch or alder spray, and the undying race of reed-birds still rustles through the withering grass. But these bones rustle not. These mouldering elements are slowly preparing for another metamorphosis, to serve new masters, and what was the Indian's will ere long be the white man's sinew .

We learned that Bedford was not so famous for hops as formerly, since the price is fluctuating, and poles are now scarce . Yet if the traveler goes back a few miles
from the river, the hop kilns will still excite his curiosity. There were few incidents in our voyage this forenoon, though the river was now more rocky and the falls more
frequent than before. It was a pleasant change, after rowing incessantly for many hours, to lock ourselves through in some retired place, - for commonly there was no lock-man at hand, - one sitting in the boat,while the other, sometimes with no little labor and heaveyo-ing, opened and shut the gates, waiting patiently to see the locks fill. We did not once use the wheels which we had provided. Taking advantage of the eddy, we were sometimes floated up to the locks almost in the face of the falls ; and, by the same cause, any floating timberwas carried round in a circle and repeatedly drawn into the rapids before it finally went down the stream. These old gray structures, with their quiet arms stretched over the river in the sun, appeared like natural objects in the scenery, and the kingfisher and sandpiper alighted on them as readily as on stakes or rocks.We rowed leisurely up the stream for several hours, until the sun had got high in the sky, our thoughts monotonously beating time to our oars. For outward
variety there was only the river and the receding shores, a vista continually opening behind and closing before us,as we sat with our backs upstream ; and, for inward,
such thoughts as the muses grudgingly lent us. We were always passing some low, inviting shore, or some overhanging bank, on which, however, we never landed.

Such near aspects had we
Of our life's scenery .

It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smallerocean creek within the land, where men may steer by
their farm bounds and cottage lights . For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has
chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor. From an old ruined fort on Staten. Island, I have loved
to watch all day some vessel -whose name I had read in the morning through the telegraph glass, when she first came upon the coast, and her hull heaved up and glistened
in the sun, from the moment when the pilot and most adventurous news-boats met her, past the Hook, and up the narrow channel of the wide bay, till she was
boarded by the health officer, and took her station at quarantine, or held on her unquestioned course to the wharves of New York. It was interesting, too, to watch
the less adventurous newsman, who made his assault as the vessel swept through the Narrows, defying plague and quarantine law, and, fastening his little cockboat to her huge side, clambered up and disappeared in the cabin. And then I could imagine what momentous news was being imparted by the, ptain, which no American
ear had ever heard, that Asia, Africa, Europe - were all sunk ; for which at length he pays the price, and is seen descending the ship's side with his bundle of newspapers, but not where he first got up, for these arrivers do not stand still to gossip ; and he hastes away with steady sweeps to dispose of his wares to the highest bidder, and
we shall ere long read something startling, - " By the latest arrival," --" by the good ship -..-." On Sunday I beheld, from some interior hill, the long procession of
vessels getting to sea, reaching from the city wharves through the Narrows, and past the Hook, quite to the ocean ,stream, far as the eye could reach, with stately
march and silken sails, all counting on lucky voyages, but each time some of the number, no doubt, destined to go to Davy's locker, and never come on this coast
again. And, again, in the evening of a pleasant day, it was my amusement to count the sails in sight. But as the setting sun continually brought more and more to
light, still farther in the horizon, the last count always had the advantage, till, 1)y the time the last rays streamed over the sea, I had doubled and trebled my first number ;
though I could no longer class them all under the several heads of ships, barks, brigs, schooners, and sloops, but most were faint. generic vessels only. And then the temperate twilight, perchance, revealed the floating home of some sailor whose thoughts were already alienated from this American coast, and directed towards the Europe of our dreams. I have stood upon the same hilltop, when a thutrder-shower, rolling down from the Catskills and Highlands, passed over the island, deluging the land ; and, ovlren it hart suddenly left its in sunshine, have see it overtake successivciv, with its huge shadow and dark, descending ls~dl ()f rain. t}rc vessels in the tray. Their
bright sails were :-;uddeDly drooping and dark, like thesides of barns, acrd they seerned to shrink before thestorm ; while still far beyond them otr the sea, throughthis dark veil, gleamed the sunny sails of those vesselswhich the storm had not yet reached . And at midnight when all around and overhead was darkness, I have seen
a field of trembling, silvery light far out on the sea, the reflection of the moonlight from the ocean, as if beyond the precincts of our night, where the moon traversed a
cloudless heaven, - and sometimes a dark speck in itsmidst, where some fortunate vessel was pursuing its happy voyage by night.