HABITS. 159 



guide had nearly failed us, we at length arrived at the cabin 

 of another hunter, where we lodged. 



" This man and his family are remarkable instances of the 

 effect on the complexion produced by the perpetual incar- 

 ceration of a thorough woodland life. Incarceration may be 

 a term less applicable to the condition of a roving backwoods- 

 man than to any other, and especially unsuitable to the habits 

 of this man and his family : for the cabin in which he enter- 

 tained us is the third dwelling he has built within the last 

 twelve months ; and a very slender motive would place him 

 in a fourth before the ensuing winter. In his general habits, 

 the hunter ranges as freely as the beast he pursues. Labor- 

 ing under no restraint, his activity is only bounded by his 

 own physical powers. Still he is incarcerated — ' shut from 

 the common air — buried in the depth of a boundless forest — 

 the breeze of health never reaches these poor wanderers. 

 They are tall and pale, like vegetables that grow in a vault, 



pining for light.' 



" The man, his pregnant wife, his eldest son, a tall, half- 

 naked youth, just initiated in the hunter's art, and three 

 daughters, growing up into great rude girls, and a squalling 

 tribe of dirty brats of both sexes, are of one pale yellow, 

 without the slightest tint of healthful bloom. 



'' In passing through a vast expanse of the backwoods, I 

 have been so much struck with this effect, that I fancy I 

 could determine the color of the inhabitants if I was apprised 

 of the depth of their immersion ; and, vice versa, I could 

 judge of the extent of the clearings if I saw the people. The 

 blood, I fancy, is not supplied with its proper dose of oxygen 

 from their gloomy atmosphere, crowded with vegetables 

 growing almost in the dark, or decomposing, and, in either 

 case, abstracting from the air this vital principle."— iVo^e5, 

 138, et seq. 



