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grateful and nourishing ; I gathered a 

 bundle of the same, took up my lodging 

 under a large spreading beech-tree, and 

 having sucked plentifully of the juice went 

 to sleep. Next day I made a due east 

 course, which I generally kept the rest of 

 my journey. I often imagined my gun was 

 only wood-bound, and tried every method 

 I could devise to unscrew the lock ; but 

 never could effect it, having no knife nor 

 any thing fitting for the purpose. I had 

 now the satisfaction to find my jaw began 

 to mend, and in four or five days could 

 chew any vegetable proper for nourish- 

 ment ; but finding my gun only a useless 

 burden, left her in the wilderness. I had 

 no apparatus for making fire to sleep by, 

 so that I could get but little rest for the 

 gnats and musketoes : there are likewise a 

 great many swamps in the beech-ridge, 

 which occasioned me very often to lie wet. 

 This ridge, through which I travelled, is 

 about twenty miles broad, the ground in 

 general very level and rich, free from 



I 



