AMERICAN FOREST SCENERY. 9 



they fall they rot ; scarcely one in a thousand being 

 used by the hunter for his camp fire. 



The scenery, viewed from the surface of a river, 

 exhibits an equal variety. The hunter is ascending- 

 one of the rivers (say the Brazos), sees on one side 

 a dense mass of forest, the depth of which may be 

 measured by yards or miles. On the other side is a 

 precipitous bluff bank ; and though the traveller can- 

 not see up to the summit of it, he knows well 

 enough that beyond it there is a wide, rolling ex- 

 panse of prairie. Further on, the banks become so 

 low that they scarcely confine the waters, and then the 

 hunter sails betwixt groves of tall canes and weeds, — 

 the luxuriant vegetation of a marsh. After some 

 little progress, green meadows, as level as a bowling- 

 alley, are seen on both sides, while buffaloes and 

 wild horses and deer graze contentedly upon the 

 soft grass. 



When the hunter, be he white or red, roams these 

 solitudes by himself, his very loneliness compels him 

 to strain his senses to the utmost ; and sometimes 

 the exhibitions of keen intellect, displayed by the 

 veterans of the forest, are surprising. The white 

 hunter is, as a rule, far ahead of the Indian in that 

 learning which the red-man formerly excelled in. 



The extraordinary sagacity which many animals 

 displa}'' in avoiding the snares of man, — the almost 

 reasoning powers of the bee, the ant, the beaver, and 



