190 THE GASCONY OF NORTH AMERICA. 



without suffering injury. Will you believe it, gentlemen? 

 fifteen times I repeated this manoeuvre ; fifteen times my 

 friend repeated it ; and these stupid animals never failed 

 to rush after the last person who had fired upon them. 

 When we had killed them all, we counted the spoil; 

 there lay exactly fifteen peccaries at the foot of my tree, 

 and exactly fifteen others at the foot of the tree where 

 my friend had sought refuge." 



The fertile imagination of the Texan hunter far exceeded, 

 in reference to this particular line of exploit, anything I 

 had ever been able to dream of. I inquired of the steam- 

 boat captain, who appeared to know him intimately, the 

 place of his birth, and was informed that this hero of the 

 woods first saw daylight on the banks of the Wabash. 

 I was much edified by this information, and so will be my 

 readers, when I tell them that the Wabash is the Ga- 

 ronne of North America ; in other words, that the terri- 

 tory of the Wabash is the North American Gascony ! 



Here I conclude my chapter on the Peccary, for after 

 the Texan hunter's adventure I could relate nothing 

 which would not appear flat and uninteresting. Truth 

 is not always stranger than fiction ; and my genuine ex- 

 periences assuredly do not approach in excitement and 

 singularity to the adventure in which the Texan, accord- 

 ing to his own account, played so prominent a part. 



