284 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



And the fiddle, the catgutta, 

 And the noisy marrow-bonum, 

 I should answer, I should tell you: 

 By one John-smith they were written. 

 John-smith, soldier, sailor and explorer, 

 Editor of his own adventures 

 In the land of Po-ca-hon-tas, 

 In the realm of Pow-ha-tan, 

 Where old John-smith had a big time, 

 Filled the red man full of whisky, 

 Stole his daughter and sailed eastward 

 To the far-off land of John-bull," etc. 



There were yards and yards of this stuff, but we will 

 content ourselves with that. It's easy to write any boy 

 can do it and the grandest of themes are the easiest to 

 burlesque. That is a fact that human owls fail to under- 

 stand. What is easier to travesty than "Chronicles?" 

 And it is often done without intending irreverence; the 

 humor of the thing is the only thought of the writer ; but 

 "a jest's prosperity," etc. 



Here you see the evil effect of tobacco, how it will 

 lead a man off the track to talk about Pocahontas and 

 other irrelevant things. It's fortunate for some one that 

 my pen did not go off after Sir Walter Raleigh and the 

 story of his weighing the smoke which came from Queen 

 Elizabeth's pipe, but every schoolboy knows all about 

 that. 



We found another thing that the Indians used ; it was 

 the "man-o-min," or wild rice. This is mighty good feed 

 for wild ducks or Indians, but, as they ate it, there was a 

 grit in it which detracted from its value to men who don't 

 like to eat the hulls of grain. Hardly a night but half a 

 dozen Indians slept by our fire and cooked their wild rice 

 over it, but if they could get our Southern rice they were 

 glad. It's many a day since I ate the man-o-min, but the 



