1764, Nov.] THE FOREST LIFE. 237 



dred miles of wilderness, beset with difficulty and 

 danger, are the sole bars to his escape, should he 

 desire to effect it ; but, strange as it may appear, 

 this wdsh is apt to expire in his heart, and he often 

 remains to the end of his life a contented denizen 

 of the woods. 



Among the captives brought in for delivery were 

 some bound fast to prevent their escape ; and many 

 others, who, amid the general tumult of joy and 

 sorrow, sat sullen and scow^ling, angry that they 

 were forced to abandon the wild license of the 

 forest for tlie irksome restraints of society.^ Thus 

 to look back with a fond longing to inhospitable 

 deserts, where men, beasts, and Nature herself, 

 seem arrayed in arms, and where ease, security, 

 and all that civilization reckons among the goods 

 of life, are alike cut off, may appear to argue some 

 strange perversity or moral malformation. Yet 

 such has been the experience of many a sound 

 and healthful mind. To him who has once tasted 

 the reckless independence, the haughty self-reliance, 

 the sense of irresponsible freedom, which the forest 

 life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems fiat 

 and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, its pursuits 

 wearisome, its conventionalities, duties, and mutual 

 dependence alike tedious and disgusting. The 

 entrapped w^anderer grows fierce and restless, and 

 pants for breathing-room. His path, it is true, 



mony of adoption. Hence it was that the warriors, in their desperation, 

 formed tlie design of putting them to death, fearing that, in the attack 

 which they meditated, the captives would naturally take part with their 

 countrymen. 



1 Account of Bouquet's Expedition, 29. 



