32 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



US, and their loud deep bay began to ring and echo 

 through the gorge. The instincts with which animals 

 are endowed by their Creator on purpose to make 

 them successful in the chase is one of the most curi- 

 ous things in nature. I watched for a long time the 

 actions of one of these noble hounds. With his nose 

 close to the leaves, he would double backwards and 

 forwards on a track, to see whether it was fresh or 

 not, then abandon it at once if he found it too old. 

 At length, striking a fresh one, he started off; but 

 the next moment, finding he was going back instead 

 of forwards on the track, he wheeled and came dash- 

 ing past on a furious run, his eyes glaring with ex- 

 citement. Soon his voice made the forest ring, and I 

 could imagine the quick start it gave to the deer, 

 quietly grazing, it might have been, a mile away. 

 Lifting its beautiful head a moment, to ascertain if 

 that cry of death was on his track, he bounded away 

 in the long chase and bold swim for life. Well, let 

 them pass : the cry grows fainter and fainter, and 

 they, the pursued and pursuer, are but an emblem of 

 what is going on in the civilized world from which I 

 am severed. Life may be divided into two parts — 

 the hunters and the hunted. It is an endless chase, 

 where the timid and the weak constantly fall by the 

 way. The swift racers come and go like shadows on 

 the vision, and the cries of fear and of victory swell 

 on the ear and die away, only to give place to another 

 and another. 



Thus musing, I pushed on, until at length we left 

 the bed of the stream, and began to climb amid 



