HUNTING THE GRIZZLY BEAR IN HIS DEN. 275 



with toe much reality to find room for coloring too 

 much of the sublime and terrible in the scenes with which 

 he is associated, to be boastful of himself. Apart from 

 the favorable effects of civilization, he is also separated 

 from its contaminations; and boasting and exaggeration 

 are " settlements" weaknesses, and not the products of 

 the wild woods. 



The hunter, whether Indian or white, presents one of 

 the most extraordinary exhibitions of the singular ca- 

 pacity of the human senses to be improved by cultiva- 

 tion. The unfortunate deaf, dumb, and blind girl, in 

 one of our public institutions,* selects her food, her 

 clothing, and her friends, by the touch alone so deli- 

 cate has it become from the mind's being directed to 

 that sense alone. The forest hunter uses the sight most 

 extraordinarily well, and experience at last renders it so 

 keen, that the slightest touch of a passing object on the 

 leaves, trees, or earth, seems to leave deep and visible 

 impressions, that to the common eye are unseen as th* 

 path of the bird through the air. This knowledge gov- 

 erns the chase and the war-path; this knowledge is 

 what, when excelled in, makes the master-spirit among 

 the rude inhabitants of the woods ; and that man is the 

 greatest chief who follows the coldest trail, and leaves 

 none behind by his own footsteps. The hunter in pur- 

 suit of the Grizzly Bear is governed by this instinct of 

 sight. It directs him with more certainty than the 

 hound is directed by his nose. The impressions of the 

 bear's footsteps upon the leaves, its marks on the trees, 

 its resting-places, are all known long before the bear ii 

 * Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. 



