30 HOESE POETEAITUEE. 



line run afc that time, and find every corner erected or 

 witness tree marked on thousands of .acres. 



PRECEPTOR. Without being quite so enthusiastic in my 

 devotion to tobacco as I find you are, I enjoy the per- 

 fumed breath of such a cigar as this. Your friend, the 

 donor, who cares so well that your pouch be well filled, 

 has my hearty thanks. Your camp life I know something 

 about. In my boyhood's days I was with a stable of race- 

 horses ; at that time there were no railroads forming a 

 net work of iron all over the country, and we had to 

 travel our horses from race-course to race-course, often 

 long journeys of hundreds of miles. It was rare that we 

 found proper accommodations to pass the night, so we were 

 prepared, like surveyors, to stop where our convenience 

 dictated, or when the horses were thought to have walked 

 far enough. A pair of mules was harnessed to a big 

 wagon, in which was loaded hay, corn blades, oats, corn, 

 bran, meal for bread, bacon, groceries, a hand-mill to 

 prepare hominy, with all the necessary appendages to a 

 race stable ; we generally selected a pine forest to camp in, 

 and the first business of us boys, was to gather the long 

 pine leaves to form bedding for ourselves and horses. 

 The ground would be thickly covered with them, so 

 that it was no very long task. The cones were also plen- 

 tiful, and of them we made fires, heating water to wash 

 legs, whenever the trainer said hot water should be ap- 

 plied. The horses cleaned, legs rubbed, we prepared our 

 own supper, and much as the breakfast we have just 

 eaten would merit praise, the recollection of the fried 

 bacon, corn-bread, and coffee drunk out of tin cups, 

 conies back to me as being relishqd as well as the delica- 

 cies I am now most given to like. It was a much more 

 v; duous task for the trainer of that day to keep his horsen 

 ui 1 right than at present. A rainy night and we had no India 

 rubber covers to keep out the moisture, but we used thick 



