MY ADVENTURE

My Dear Heinrich:

I little supposed when I wrote you yesterday that twenty four hours
could so completely change my circumstances. Then I was a dweller in
the palatial Darwin Hotel, luxuriating in all its magnificence. Now I
am hiding in a strange house and trembling for my liberty;--but I
will tell you all.

Yesterday morning, after I had disposed by sample of our wool, and
had called upon the assayer of ores, but without finding him, to show
him the specimens of our mineral discoveries, I returned to the
hotel, and there, after obtaining directions from one of the clerks
at the "Bureau of Information," I took the elevated train to the
great Central Park.

I shall not pause to describe at length the splendors of this
wonderful place; the wild beasts roaming about among the trees,
apparently at dangerous liberty, but really inclosed by fine steel
wire fences, almost invisible to the eye; the great lakes full of the
different water fowl of the world; the air thick with birds
distinguished for the sweetness of their song or the brightness of
their plumage; the century-old trees, of great size and artistically
grouped; beautiful children playing upon the greensward, accompanied
by nurses and male servants; the whole scene constituting a holiday
picture. Between the trees everywhere I saw the white and gleaming
statues of the many hundreds of great men and women who have adorned
the history of this country during the last two hundred years--poets,