82 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



as large as pigeons' eggs, and grow in clumps, 

 which, being of the same colour as the ground, 

 are invisible. One of old S.'s jokes for many 

 a day, I doubt not, will be to describe how ' the 

 Squire,' as he used to call me, stepped on his 

 first cactus, and then, holding the injured moccasin 

 in the air for him to extract the thorny trouble, 

 plumped inadvertently down upon anything but 

 a bed of roses. To have what I once heard the 

 present Home Secretary describe, in the Nisi 

 Prius Court at Birmingham, as ' that cushion 

 which kindly Nature has provided for tired hu- 

 manity ' converted, at a moment's notice, into a 

 1 pin-cushion,' is a little more than any man born 

 of woman can endure in silence ; and I fear the 

 more S. laughed the more I ejaculated, and deeper 

 and deeper the iron entered into my soul. When 

 at last we camped at the forks of the river, the 

 sky was full of rain ; clouds were round the peaks ; 

 no Indians were said to be in the village ; it was 

 only by digging out a site for our bed, inches 

 deep in the soil, that we could escape the 

 ubiquitous cactus ; and altogether the barometer 

 of man and nature was decidedly ' stormy.' 



Thine, 



C. P. W. 



