10 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER II. 



LOG DRIVING. 



Backwoods, July 6t7i. 

 Did you ever witness a log driving ? It is one of 

 the curiosities of the backwoods, where streams are 

 made to subserve the purpose of teams. On the 

 steep- mountain side, and along the shores of the 

 brook which in spring time becomes a swollen torrent, 

 tearing madly through the forest, the tall pines and 

 hemlocks are felled in winter and dragged or rolled 

 to the brink of the streams. Here every man marks 

 his own, as he would his sheep, and then rolls them 

 in, when the current is swollen by the rains. The 

 melted snow along the acclivities comes in a perfect 

 sheet of water down, and the streams rise as if by 

 magic to the tops of their banks, and a broad, resist- 

 less current goes sweeping like a live and gloomy 

 thing through the deep forest. The foam-bubbles 

 sparkle on the dark bosom that floats them on, and 

 past the boughs that bend with the stream, and by 

 the precipices that frown sternly down on the tumult. 

 The rapid waters shoot onward like an arrow, or 

 rather a visible spirit on some mysterious errand, 

 seeking the loneliest and most fearful passages the 



