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and is much practised by the Indians and frontier inhabitants, who some- 

 times, in the eagerness of their diversion, are punished for their cruelty, and 

 are hurt by one another when they shoot across at the deer which are in the 

 middle. What the Indians do now by a circle of fu-c, the ancient Persians 

 performed formerly by a circle of men : and the same is practised at this 

 day in Germany upon extraordinary occasions, when any of the princes of 

 the empire have a mind to make a general hunt, as they call it. At such 

 times they order a vast number of people to surround a whole territory. 

 Then marching inwards in close order, they at last force all the wild beasts 

 into a narrow compass, that the prince and his company may have the di- 

 version of slaughtering as many as they please with their own hands. Our 

 hunters massacred two brace of deer after this unfair way, of which they 

 brought us one brace whole, and only the primings of the rest. 



So many were absent on this occasion, that we who remained excused 

 the chaplain from the trouble of spending his spirits by preaching to so thin 

 a congregation. One of the men, who had been an old Indian trader, brought^ 

 me a stem of silk grass, which was about as big as my little finger. But, 

 being so late in the year that the leaf was fallen off, I am not able to describe 

 the plant. The Indians use it in all their little manufactures, twisting a 

 thread of it that is prodigiously strong. Of this they make their baskets 

 and the aprons which their women wear about their middles, for decency's 

 sake. These are long enough to wrap quite round them and reach down to 

 their knees, with a fringe on the under part by way of ornament. They put 

 on this modest covering with so much art, that the most impertinent curiosity 

 cannot in the negligentest of their motions or postures make the least dis- 

 covery. As this species of silk grass is much stronger than hemp, I make 

 no doubt but sail cloth and cordage might be made of it with considerable 

 improvement. 



1 Ith. We had all been so refreshed by our day of rest, that we decamped 

 earlier than ordinary, and passed the several fords of Hico river. The 

 woods were thick great part of this day's journey, so that we were forced to 

 scuffle hard to advance seven miles, being equal in fatigue to double that 

 distance of clear and open grounds. We took up our quarters upon Sugar- 

 tree creek, in the same camp we had lain in when we came up, and happened 

 to be entertained at supper with a rarity we had never had the fortune to 

 meet with before, during the whole expedition. A little wide of this creek, 

 one of the men had the luck to meet with a young buffalo of two years old. 

 It was a bull, which, notwithstanding he was no older, was as big as an ordi- 

 nary ox. His legs were very thick and very short, and his hoofs exceeding 

 broad. His back rose into a kind of bunch a little above the shoulders, 

 which I beheve contributes not a little to that creature's enormous strength. 

 His body is vastly deep from the shoulders to the brisket, sometimes six feet 

 in those that are full grown. The portly figure of this animal is disgraced 

 by a shabby little tail, not above twelve inches long. This he cocks up on 

 end whenever he is in a passion, and, instead of lowing or bellov/ing, grunts 

 with no better grace than a hog. The hair growing on his head and neck is 

 long and shagged, and so soft that it will spin into thread not unlike mohair, 

 which might be wove into a sort of camlet. Some people have stockings 

 knit of it, that would have served an Israelite during his forty years' march 

 through the wilderness. Its horns are short and strong, of which the Indians 

 make large spoons, which they say will split and fall to pieces whenever poi- 

 son is put into them. Its colour is a dirty brown, and its hide so thiclc that 

 it is scarce penetrable. However, it makes very spongy sole leather by the 

 ordinary method of tanning, though this fault might by good contrivance be 

 mended. As thick as this poor beast'ahide was, a bullet made shift to enter 



