UP STREAM: OX THE RED RIVER. 377 



and drank, wrapped myself in a blanket, and slept, 

 with the blue vault for a covering, as well or better 

 than the president. 



In the morning, before starting, I shouted o\\t 



a "Thank ye! and be d d to you!" by way 



of remerciment ; and then Ave resumed our march. 



At last, upon the third evening, we managed to 

 get our heads under a roof at the town of Baton 

 Eouge, in the house of an old French soldier, who 

 laughed at the yellow fever as he had formerly 

 done at the Cossacks and Mamelukes; and the fol- 

 lowing morning we started for the Eed Eiver, in the 

 steamboat Clayborne. By nightfall we reached my 

 domain. 



Santa Virgen ! exclaims the Spaniard in his ex- 

 tremity of grief and perplexity : what I exclaimed, 

 I am sure I do not remember ; but I know that 

 my hair stood on end, when I beheld, for the first 

 time, the so-called improvements on my new property. 

 The habitable and comfortable house was a species 

 of pig-sty, built out of the rough branches of trees, 

 without doors, windows, or roof. There was I to 

 dwell, and that in a season when the thermometer 

 was ranging between ninety -five and a hundred 

 degrees. The very badness of things, however, stim- 

 ulated us to exertion ; we set to work, and in two 

 days had built a couple of very decent huts, the 

 only inconvenience of which was, that when it rained 

 hard we were obliged to take refuge under a neigh- 



