OVER THE WATER, STRAY THOUGHTS ON A LONG STROLL.byHENEY MANEY.WITH AN INTRODUCTORY BY THE HON. EDWIN H. EWING.NASHVILLE: TOON, NELSON A COMPANY. 1854.INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM HON. EDWIN H. EWING.Nashville, April 6th, 1854.HENEY MANEY, ESQ. :MY DEAR FRIEND—As you have already determined to commit your barque to the waves of public opinion, you must, I suppose, abide their buffets; nor can I or any one else interpose ashield that will break their force. Happily, I think, you will not need such a shield.Soon after my return from Europe, I found you in a course of publication in the Gazette, andnaturally turned with interest to see how the sights and incidents that we had witnessedtogether would tell to me, who had been an actor, as well as to those who had remained athome not altogether uninterested inquirers after our wanderings. I turned too, with noincurious eye, to your Letters, to see what impression had been made upon one young, ardentand enthusiastic as yourself, by objects which I had also viewed with a mind worn, jaded, andthen somewhat weary of the things of life. Romance1, with me, was but a memory; with you itwas the day-spring of life; History to you was a living picture; to me it was but a moulderingskeleton. To the one the Poetry, the Painting, the Music of by-gone times were wells of inspiration; while to the other, they were but the insipid waters of the stagnant reservoir.The reading of your letters was then to me not merely the renewal of faded memories—therepainting of scenes dimmed by time and distance — the replacing of forgotten snow-cladgiants that rest around him in the dignity of lasting silence? Who would refuse himself thememory of having stood upon some field of blood, where he could almost hear the tramp of charging squadrons, and the despairing cry of down trodden thousands from the " lost battleflying?" Who would forget the fearful horror with which he had looked into the bowels of Vesuvius, beetling upon its crater's "perilous edge," and dumb with awe at the dread throes of mysterious nature in this her last retreat? Whose heart should not leap with the thought of seeing the faded glories of Venice, " the City of the Sea," the throneless Adrian Queen; of basking upon the sunlit shores of Naples' bay, with its vine-clad hills and smiling islands, richin remains of the " unforgotten dead;" of taking at least a look at Genoa the Proud, anddallying for a time upon the glacis of gay and laughing Vienna? Ah; me! The memory of suchsights and scenes comes upon me now, with the melancholy but not painful thought that Ishall see them no more.But it is not alone in musing silence that pleasure is derived from such recollections;whenever a book is read or a discourse is heard where countries are introduced over whichone has traveled, they seem nearer and more real than of old. Borne and Greece, and that far land where salvation was first revealed for the sons of men, used to seem to m« as Laputa or Atlantis—their existence and their story met my acquiescence rather than my belief—theywere but shadows of the real. Now I can feel their substance and their truth; their ruins andtheir monuments have rescued them from the land of dreams and imagination.How much I regretted that you found it necessary to turn your steps homeward, when weparted at Naples—you to reside for a time in that "umbilicus terra," that Festa- ground of nations, "Lutetia Parisiorum"—I to tempt the sands of Egypt, and to track the Israelites in their wanderings. But you will yet live, I hope, to visit "the Father of Waters," and to rest yourself

under the brow of " Old. Sinai;" to see the waste places of the City of Jehovah, and to pitchyour tent by "the river of Damascus. "And then again the world may hear from you with renewed interest. Indeed /feel sometimesalmost a desire to write of these lands of miracle and romance—not for the world's applause—not for its amusement, nor yet with the presumptuous hope of affording it instruction, but as it• were, to renew my visit—to bring closer my recollections, and to give vent to my dreamymeditations. On the top of the Pyramids; in the shadow of Memnon's Statue; by the Well of Samaria; along the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and at the Pool of Bethesda, I had my dreams.When I looked from Hebron toward "the Sea of Death," and saw forever ascending a smokelike the breath of a furnace; when I bathed in the " Sea of Galilee," and looked across at themountains of Gilead; when I stood upon Mount Tabor, and viewed a-back the wide plain of Esdraelon, there came up the mighty shadows of the past—Abraham and the cities of theplain—the Son of Mary stilling the sudden storm—Saul breathing out his despairing soulupon the mountains of Gilboa.In Greece, too, I seemed sometimes to be with the spirits of the "mighty dead"—Agamemnonwith his host; Xerxes with his crowded millions; Sparta with her iron sons; Athens with itsbrilliant heroes—all lived again and passed in review before me. But I find that I am rather telling you my story than writing to you about your own; and indeed I have, perhaps, said asmuch about each as propriety may demand. One remark more, however, I will make.I observe in your Letters that which some may regard as a defect, but which is with me rather matter of commendation. I mean the omission of anything like extended commentary uponthe social or governmental relations of the people among whom you traveled. I regard it asbut a piece of shallow presumption, on the part of any one who passes rapidly from point topoint in a country, to undertake to give views of government and society, that should be theresult only of long residence and intimate means of knowledge.Facts may be given, but deductions from them, as to the happiness or misery of a people—asto their capacity for self-government; as to their practical oppression and their means of relief—require a larger view and more reflection than can be given by a mere traveler.But enough. I am sure that you deserve success; and if public applause should becommensurate with my respect and friendship for you, yourself would be satisfied that it hadbeen accorded to you in full and even overflowing measure. Yours, truly,EDWIN H. EWING.**********************************************************************************************************