HISTORY. 213 



The paths they make to the pools of fresh water or saline 

 springs which they frequent, are often as numerous and trod- 

 den as the highways of a peopled country ; and all travellers 

 in the western countries speak with amazement of the traces 

 of their numbers. They retire to the boundless wilds of the 

 interior before the progress of the settler, and from the per- 

 secution of the chase. Formerly they were to be found to 

 the eastward of the Apalachian Mountains ; but they are now 

 driven to the remoter wilderness towards the Ohio, the Mis- 

 souri, and west of the Mississippi on the south. They are the 

 subjects of incessant attack and pursuit by the Indian tribes, 

 who feed upon their flesh, and make cloaks, sandals, and other 

 fabrics, of their hides. They are often slaughtered in vast 

 numbers together. Sometimes they are driven in crowds into 

 ravines, and to the edges of precipices, where they are killed 

 by lances and other missiles. Sometimes, the grass being 

 set fire to, the herd is encompassed and thrown into confu- 

 sion, and all other means which their savage persecutors can 

 devise are employed to entrap and destroy them. This fright- 

 ful carnage cuts off by degrees the sources of the future sup- 

 ply ; and the time may come when this marvel of the Ameri- 

 can wilderness will be as rare to be seen as the Bison of the 

 Lithuanian forests. 



Of the fitness of this creature for domestication no doubt 

 can exist. He is the native Ox of America : and had the 

 country been inhabited by civilized communities, in place of 

 tribes of savage hunters, a creature so formed by Nature 

 for the service of man could not have remained unsubdued. 

 He is far more docile than the Bison of Europe, and mani- 

 fests no antipathy to the domestic race. He breeds with 

 the latter ; but how far the mixed progeny would be fruitful 

 with one another, has not. it is believed, been determined. 

 He is tamed with great facility, and manifests no ferocity. 

 Numbers are sometimes separated from the herd by the 

 back- woodsmen of the United States, driven long journeys, 

 and brought in, perfectly subdued, to the American towns, to 



