LIFE IN THE PllAIHIE. 379 



with our reserve horses and transport mules. Spite of all 

 our precautions, in the utter impossibility of leading each 

 of our beasts by the bridle, five of them disappeared 

 among the mass of savage animals. In order to recover 

 them, we ventured into the very midst of the forest of 

 horns, but in vain ; we had to resume our journey, and 

 abandon the deserters to the nomadic life of the prairies." 



I resume my personal narrative. 



Life in the rolling prairies passes day by day in a 

 uniform manner; and yet, notwithstanding its monotony, 

 for a genuine lover of the hunt it has so irresistible a 

 charm and an attraction, that at the very moment of my 

 writing these lines seated before my desk, surrounded 

 by all the comforts of civilization I would quit Europe 

 without regret to plunge once more into the verdurous 

 waves of the American Sahara, in pursuit of the bison, 

 the stag, and the antelope, though on my return from 

 this new Odyssey, instead of an exquisite repast after 

 Tide or Careme, I should find but a simple salad, washed 

 down with a glass of eau-de-vie. 



During my ten years' residence in the United States, I 

 frequently met with trappers who had formerly enjoyed 

 all the delights of civilized life, and who, by some accident, 

 having fallen into the midst of a wandering tribe, had 

 eventually become so thoroughly accustomed to the man- 

 ners, pleasures, vicissitudes, and excitement of the desert- 

 life, that they would not have surrendered their bed of 

 rushes, with its precarious shelter of a slight canvas tent, 

 for the most luxurious couch that was ever spread beneath 

 a palace roof. You must yourself have experienced this 

 btran^e kind of intoxication in order to understand it. 



