42 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



and brusliwood of every kind, mingled witli creepers 

 and wild vines. A thousand strange noises were 

 heard in these solitudes, and disturbed the silence 

 which reigned around. Sometimes it was the hooting 

 of the owls or the cav/ing of the rooks; sometimes 

 the song of mocking-bird, or the murmur of a 

 cascade falling upon moss-clad rocks ; sometimes it 

 was the squirrel playing among the branches, or the 

 call of the moor-cock in the underwood. 



Apparently, we incurred no kind of danger in the 

 middle of this civilized country, but at a turn of the 

 road a fearful spectacle met our eyes. Clouds of 

 smoke obscured the heavens, and a devouring flame 

 was licking up the trees and crackling with a noise 

 resembling a discharge of musketry. The forest 

 had been set on fire by the carelessness of some 

 wood-cutters, and we could see the poor devils, 

 frightened out of their, wits at the mischief they had 

 caused, huddled together by tlie roadside, and look- 

 ing with an air of stupefaction at the progress of the 

 flames. I had never seen anything grander, and 

 even the fire in the prairie which had so nearly put 

 an end to my career in 1843, had not offered so 

 terrible a spectacle as these trees, wrestling as it 

 were in the agonies of death, and falling down into 

 the flames which consumed them. Our horse began 

 to be frightened, and raised his head as if he wished 

 to run away ; but lleid held him with a firm grip, 

 and cried out to me not to stir, for he would answer 



