166 Retrospective Criticism. 



existed in that which his keen and piercing eye would soon 

 have told him was an absolute cheat. 



Second Experiment. The author says, * I had a large 

 dead hog hauled some distance from the house, and put into 

 a ravine, about twenty feet deeper than the surface of the 

 earth around it, narrow and winding, much filled with briars 

 and high cane. In this I made the negroes conceal the hog, 

 by binding cane over it, until I thought it would puzzle either 

 the buzzards, carrion crows, or any other birds to see it, and 

 left it for two days. This was early in the month of July, 

 when in this latitude it becomes putrid and extremely fetid in 

 a short time. I saw, from time to time, many vultures in 

 search of food sail over the field and ravine in all directions, 

 but none discovered the carcass, although during this time 

 several dogs had visited it, and fed plentifully on it. I tried 

 to go near it, but the smell was so insufferable, when within 

 thirty yards, that I abandoned it; and the remains were 

 entirely destroyed at last, through natural decay." 



Here the author positively and distinctly tells us, that he 

 saw many vultures, in search of food, sail over the field and 

 ravine, in all directions, but none discovered the carcass ; 

 although, during this time, several dogs had visited it, and fed 

 plentifully on it 



Pray, when the dogs were at dinner on the carcass, and 

 the vultures at the same time were flying over the ravine 

 where the hog lay, what prevented these keen-eyed birds 

 from seeing the hog ? The author positively says that none 

 discovered the carcass. Could, then, several dogs devour 

 the hams of swine, and riot on pig's liver, in such amazing 

 secrecy and silence as not to be observed in the act by the 

 lynx-eyed vultures above ? Were there no squabbles amongst 

 the dogs for possession of the pig's cheeks ? no snarling for 

 the flitch ? no pulling the body this way, or that way ? no 

 displacing the materials with which the negroes had covered 

 the hog ? In a word, was there no movement on the part of 

 the dogs, by which the passing vultures might receive a hint 

 that there was something in the ravine below " calculated to 

 glut their voracious appetite?" Fear, certainly, could not 

 have kept them away ; because the author tells us, in another 

 part of his account, that he has seen vultures feeding at one 

 extremity of a carcass, and dogs at another. 



This second experiment, like the story of the " bear and 

 fiddle," was broken off in the middle. The author tried to 

 go near the carcass, but the smell was so insufferable that he 

 abandoned it when he had got within thirty yards of it. He 

 tells us, the remains were entirely destroyed at last, through 



