98 Life of Auduhon, 



waste, deer in thousands are driven ; and the squatter, 

 with his gun and canoe, finds on these refuges the game 

 which he slaughters remorselessly for the skins or feath- 

 ers that will sell. Floating on a raft made fast by a vine 

 rope to some stout trees, the farmer and his family pre- 

 serve their lives, while the stream bears away their hab- 

 itation, their cut wood, their stores of grain, their stock, 

 and all their household goods. From creeks of the forest 

 other rafts float, laden with produce for New Orleans, and 

 guided by adventurous boatmen who have but vague 

 knowledge of their devious way, and to whom the naviga- 

 tion of an inland river is not less hazardous than a voy- 

 age on a stormy sea would be. 



" I have floated on the Mississippi and Ohio when 

 thus swollen, and have in different places visited the sub- 

 merged lands of the interior, propelling a light canoe by 

 the aid of a paddle. In this manner I have traversed 

 immense portions of the country overflowed by the waters 

 of these rivers, and particularly whilst floating over the 

 Mississippi bottom lands I have been struck with awe at 

 the sight. Little or no current is met with, unless when 

 the canoe passes over the bed of a bayou. All is silent 

 and melancholy, unless when the mournful bleating of 

 the hemmed-in deer reaches your ear, or the dismal 

 scream of an eagle or a heron is heard, or the foul bird 

 rises, disturbed by your approach, from the carcass on 

 which it was allaying its craving appetite. Bears, cou- 

 gars, lynxes, and all other quadrupeds that can ascend 

 the trees, are observed crouched among their top branch- 

 es ; hungry in the midst of abundance, although they see 

 floating around them the animals on which they usually 

 prey. They dare not venture to swim to them. Fa- 

 tigued by the exertions which they have made in reach- 

 ing dry land, they will there stand the hunter's fire, as if 

 to die by a ball were better than to perish amid the waste 



