PLAN OF A NEW CORPS. 191 



very short extent ; has woods extensive 

 and swamps impenetrable to every soul but 

 to those, who, by daily practice, are well 

 acquainted with its dreary and swampy 

 obstacles, which contain various animals, 

 such as the wild pig, the wolf, the bear, the 

 panther (which the Americans call painter), 

 the deer, the fox, both grey and brown, the 

 beaver, the racoon and the opossum. 



Not only their own cattle are shot with 

 the rifle, but, when they go to the hunting 

 grounds to kill the wild cattle for their 

 tallow and skins, they use no other gun. 

 The wild turkey is shot with a rifle ; nay, 

 even birds and squirrels, from the very top 

 of the loftiest trees in the woods. No small- 

 shot gun, during my residence of seven 

 years of the war in America, was ever kept 

 in the house of a back- woodsman. You 

 will often see a boy, not above ten years of 

 age, driving the cattle home, but not 

 without a rifle on his shoulder: they never 

 stir, out, on any business, nor on a journey, 

 without their rifle ; practice, from their 

 infancy, teaches them all distances. 



Provided I am able to make any soldier. 



