EPISODES 2 1 5 



line, it felt as if fast at the bottom, yet on drawing it 

 slowly I found that it came. Presently I felt a strong 

 pull, the line slipped through my fingers, and next in- 

 stant a large catfish leaped out of the water. I played 

 it for a while until it became exhausted, when I drew it 

 ashore. It had swallowed the hook, and I cut off the line 

 close to its head. Then passing a stick through one of 

 the gills, I and a servant tugged the fish home. On cut- 

 ting it open, we, to our surprise, found in its stomach a 

 fine white perch, dead, but not in the least injured. The 

 perch had been lightly hooked, and the catfish, after 

 swallowing it, had been hooked in the stomach, so that, 

 although the instrument was small, the torture caused by 

 it no doubt tended to disable the catfish. The perch we 

 ate, and the cat, which was fine, we divided into four 

 parts, and distributed among our neighbors. My most 

 worthy friend and relative, Nicholas Berthoud, Esq., who 

 formerly resided at Shippingport in Kentucky, but now 

 in New York, a better fisher than whom I never knew, 

 once placed a trot-line in the basin below "Tarascon's 

 Mills," at the foot of the Rapids of the Ohio. I cannot 

 recollect the bait which was used; but on taking up the 

 line we obtained a remarkably fine catfish, in which was 

 found the greater part of a sucking pig. 



I may here add that I have introduced a figure of the 

 catfish in Plate XXXI. of the first volume of my illus- 

 trations, in which I have represented the White-headed 

 Eagle. 



A WILD HORSE 



While residing at Henderson in Kentucky, I became 

 acquainted with a gentleman who had just returned 

 from the country in the neighborhood of the head- 

 waters of the Arkansas River, where he had purchased 



