THE DIVIDING LINE. 83 



them, and set them n perfect example of integrity and kiml beliavior towards 

 one another. But this holy person, with all his eloquence and sanctity of life, 

 was able to make very little reformation amongst them. Some few old 

 men did listen a little to his wholesome advice, but all the young fellows were 

 quite incorrigible. They not only neglected his precepts, but derided and 

 evil entreated his person. At last, taking upon him to reprove some young 

 rakes of the Conechta clan very sharply for their impiety, they were so pro- 

 voked at the freedom of his rebukes, that they tied him to a tree, and shot 

 him with arrows through the heart. But their God took instant vengeance 

 on all who had a hand in that monstrous act, by lightning from heaven, and 

 has ever since visited their nation with a continued train of calamities, nor 

 will he ever leave off punishing, and wasting their people, till he shall have 

 blotted every living soul of them out of the world. 



Our hunters shot nothing this whole day but a straggling bear, which hap- 

 pened to fall by the hand of the very person who had been lately disarmed and 

 put to flight, for which he declared war against the w-hole species. 



loth. We pursued our journey with all diligence, and forded Ohimpamony 

 creek about noon, and from thence proceeded to Yapatsco, which we could 

 not cross without difficulty. The beavers had dammed up the water much 

 higher than we found it at our going up, so that we were obliged to lay a 

 bridge over a part that was shallower than the rest, to facilitate our passage. 

 Beavers have more of instinct, that half-brother of reason, than any other 

 animal, especially in matters of self-preservation. In their houses they al- 

 ways contrive a sally-port, both towards the land and towards the water, that 

 so they may escape by one, if their retreat should happen to be cut off at the 

 other. They perform all their works in the dead of night, to avoid discovery, 

 and are kept diligently to it by the master beaver, which by his age or 

 strength has gained to himself an authority over the rest. If any of the gang 

 happen to be lazy, or will not exert himself to the utmost in felling of trees, 

 or dragging them to the place where they are made use of, this superintend- 

 ent will not fail to chastise him with the flat of the tail, wherewith he is able 

 to give unmerciful strokes. They lie snug in their houses all day, unless some 

 unneighbourly miller chance to disturb their repose, by demolishing their 

 dams for supplying his mill with water. It is rare to see one of them, and 

 the Indians for that reason have hardly any way to take them, but by laying 

 snares near the place where they dam up the water. But the English hunters 

 have found out a more effectual method, by using the following receipt. Take 

 the large pride of the beaver, squeeze all the juice out of it, then take the 

 small pride, and squeeze out about five or six drops. Take the inside of sas- 

 safi-as bark, powder it, and mix it wnth the liquor, and place this bait conve- 

 niently for your steel trap. The story of their biting off their testicles to 

 compound for their lives, when they are pursued, is a story taken upon trust 

 by Pliny, like many others. Nor is it the beavers' testicles that carry the per- 

 fume, but they have a pair of glands just within the fundament, as sweet as 

 musk, that perfume their dung, and communicate a strong scent to their testi- 

 cles, by being placed near them. It is true several creatures have strange in- 

 stincts for their preservation, as the Egyptian frog, we are told by Elian, will 

 carry a whole joint of a reed across its mouth, that it may not be swallowed 

 by the ibis. And this long-necked fowl will give itself a clyster with its beak, 

 whenever it finds itself too costive or feverish. The dogs of that count) y lap the 

 ^ater of the Nile in a full trot, that they may not be snapped by the crocodiles. 

 Both beavers and wolves, we know, when one of their legs is cauglit in a 

 steel trap, will bite it off, that they may escape with the rest. The flesh of 

 the beavers is tough and dry, all but the tail, which, like the parrot's tongue, 

 was one of the far-fetched rarities with which Helioaabakis n.^ed t<> iMniisli 



