808 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
“Did you bring in a deer, Molly ?” 
Yes!” ° 
“Ts it cold?” 
“ All but the hams!” 
“Then skin them, and wrap the warm parts of the skin 
around the bruised limb !” 
“Yes, I know!” and she turned off, while he resumed his 
labor. 
“Well!” thought I, “this is a case! “Here I am about to 
be enveloped in a reeking deer-skin, warm from the carcass, 
by these wild cannibals. I wish the infernal tornado had 
finished me. I have heard of such usages, but they horrify 
me!” I felt most like getting up to run away, but there in 
terposed the sad difficulty that I was unable to rise. After 
several ineffectual efforts, which, however, attracted no sort 
of attention from the rapt student at the desk, and many 
muttered anathemas against fate, fools and fanatics in gene- 
ral, I managed to subside, in a great degree, into a cooler 
mood, and became resigned, from sheer helplessness, to trust 
in anything but such Providence !—as I impiously sneered to 
myself. 
The woman came now with the warm skin; and after some 
remonstrance on my part, the old man was roused from his 
absorbed labor to envelop my extremities in this novel poul- 
tice. I afterwards found that it was extensively used among 
the Indians, north and south, and have since learned that this 
first step towards the “pack” of wet sheet and blanket, claimed 
to be invented by Priessnitz, is one of the oldest uses of our 
race, and still practiced with wonderful effect in China, Russia, 
Germany, &c., by the lower classes, and sometimes by the 
higher, as was the case once with Murat, when he was crushed 
almost into a jelly by the fall of his horse down a precipice. 
He was enveloped by his wise physician, in the hide of an 
ox, which was killed for the purpose, and after a long sleep, 
recovered, with nearly all trace of his bruises gone. I was not 
