300 TRAVEL, ADVENTUKE, AND SPORT. 



since then he had regularly sent furs and beaver-skins 

 as payment for her maintenance, and he now came 

 to claim her as his property. Resistance to his de- 

 mand would have been in vain, for he was backed by 

 an imposing force of Indian warriors ; the entreaties 

 of Mrs Copeland and the missionary were insufficient 

 to turn him from his purpose, and he took away the 

 child, who had been christened by the name of Rosa. 

 Time ran on, and another lapse of seven years has 

 to be recorded. We are now at the end of the year 

 1814. At the northern extremity of the Sabine lake, 

 and in the midst of the reed and cypress swamps that 

 extend southwards to the sea, there lies, between the 

 rivers Sabine and Xatchez, a narrow tongue of land, 

 which, widening in proportion as the rivers recede, 

 forms a gently swelling eminence, enclosed by the 

 clear and beautiful waters of the two streams. The 

 latter flow through dark thickets of cypress and pal- 

 metto, to the lake above named, which, in its turn, 

 is united with the Gulf of Mexico, and it would 

 almost appear as if nature, in a capricious moment, 

 had chosen thus distinctly to mark the boundary of 

 the two vast countries which the Sabine severs. On 

 the right bank of that river rises a black and im- 

 penetrable forest, so thickly matted and united by 

 enormous thorns, that even the hunted deer or 

 savanna wolf will rarely attempt an entrance. The 

 earth is overgrown by an impenetrable carpet of 

 creeping plants, under whose treacherous shelter in- 



