158 THE AMERICAN BLACK EEAR. 



literally bending beneath the weight of their load. As 

 in such cases all kinds of game are led by a kind of 

 instinct to seek the fruitful parts of the forest, the 

 hunter will be well rewarded for his trouble if he seeks 

 the richly loaded woods. When the mast famine ex- 

 tends over a very large tract of land, the plantations 

 and fields suffer great losses from the ravages of all 

 kinds of game. The overseer makes his appearance 

 before the planter, morning after morning, with a long 

 face and a catalogue of calamities; the cornfields 

 trampled down and destroyed, pumpkins and melons 

 disappearing, a couple of fat porkers absent without 

 leave, and no end of bear tracks round about the fences. 

 At such times even the most good-natured planter feels 

 his ' dander * rise, and is apt to make rash vows regard- 

 ino' the total extermination of the whole of the bear 

 tribe. 



Among the Southern planters, who used before the 

 late war to indulge more than any other Americans in 

 the wild sports of the forest and prairie, parties were 

 sometimes made up for the purpose, and with the 

 avowed intention of passing days or even weeks in the 

 woods, where they roused the game in a style which 

 was infinitely more pleasant to themselves than to the 

 poor turkeys, deer, and bears. A long life in the 

 South-Western States has given me such a taste for 

 that kind of amusement that being at the present time 

 unable to join in a real hunt, I endeavour to recall the 



