mEI GRll LMMONS2 
Aldo Leopold                        U f /Ir 
(Drawing by H. Albert bobbaum) 
t Is the part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more 
golden the lily, the mre ert.n that someone has gilded It. To return 
not only spoils a trip, but tarnishes a memory. It to only In the mind 
that sining advegtare rmins forever bright. blr this reason, I have never

gone baek to the Delta of the Colorado since my brother and I explored itby

canoe, in 1922. 
Por all we coud tell, the Delta had lain forgotten since Hornd 
do Alarcon landed thore in 1510. When we camed on the estuary which 
is said to have harbored his ships, we bad not for weeks seen a ma or 
a cow, an ixe-eut or a fence. One* we crossed an old igon track, its 
maker maow, and Its errand probably sinister.      Oce we found a tin 
can; it was poed upon as & valuable utensil 
Da   on the Delta was whistled in by GUmbol qail, which roosted In 
the msquite. overhaging  amp. When the sun peeped over the Sierra Madre,

It slanted acrss a hundred miles of lovely deolation, a Vast flat bowl 
of wilderness rimed. by  agg    peak*. On the map, the Delta was bisected

by the river, but in fact the river was ..   ..-.-.           for he 
could not decide which of a hundred green lagoons offered the most pleasat
    e 
Aulpath to the Ouf.      So he travelled them all, ad so did we. He divided

and rejoined, ho twisted and turned, ho meandered in awesone Jungles, he

dllied with lovely groves, he all bat ran in cirolos he got lost and 
was glad of it, and so were we. For the last word in procrastination, 
go travel with a river reluctant to lose his freedom in the soa, 
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