A 'Tortoise. 225 



deer and bears now and then started within a few yards 

 or even feet of me, not one of them could I kill ; and al- 

 though I was in the midst of abundance, not a mouthful 

 did I expect to procure, to satisfy the cravings of my 

 empty stomach. Sir, may God preserve you from ever 

 feeling as I did the whole of that day ! ' For several days 

 after no one can imagine the condition in which he was, 

 for when he related to me this painful adventure^ he as- 

 sured me he had lost all recollection of what had hap- 

 pened. ' God,' he continued, ' must have taken pity on 

 me, one day, for as I ran wildly through those dreadful 

 jDine barrens I met with a tortoise. I gazed upon it with 

 delight and amazement, and although I knew that, were I 

 to follow it undisturbed, it would lead me to some water, 

 my hunger and thirst would not allow me to refrain from 

 satisfying both by eating its flesh and drinking its blood. 

 With one stroke of my axe the beast was cut in two ; in a 

 few moments I despatched all but the shell. Oh, sir, 

 how much I thanked God, whose kindness had put the 

 tortoise in my way ! I felt greatly renewed. I sat down 

 at the foot of a pine, gazed on the heavens, thought of my 

 poor wife and children, and again and again thanked my 

 God for my life, for now I felt less distracted in mind, and 

 more assured that before long I must recover my way, 

 and get back to my home.' The lost one remained and 

 passed the night at the foot of the same tree under which 

 his repast had been made. Refreshed by a sound sleep, 

 he started at dawn to resume his weary march. The sun 

 rose bright, and he followed the direction of his shadows. 

 Still the dreariness of the woods was the same, and he 

 was on the point of giving up in despair, when he observed 

 a raccoon lying squatted in the grass. Raising his axe, 

 he drove it with such violence through the helpless ani- 

 mal, that it expired without a struggle. What he had 

 done with the turtle he now did with the raccoon, the 

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