THE DIVIDING LINE. 
71 
baggage and bedding perfectly dry. This rain was enlivened with very loud 
thunder, which was echoed back by the hills in the neighbourhood in a fright- 
ful manner. There is something in the woods that makes the sound of this 
meteor more awful, and the violence of the lightning more visible. The 
trees are frequently shivered quite down to the root, and sometimes perfectly 
twisted. But of all the effects of lightning that ever I heard of, the most 
amazing happened in this country, in the year 1786. In the summer of that 
year a surgeon of a ship, whose name was Davis, came ashore at York to 
visit a patient. He was no sooner got iiito the house, but it began to rain 
with many terrible claps of thunder. When it was almost dark there came 
a dreadful flash of lightning, which struck the surgeon dead as he was walk- 
ing about the room, but hurt no other person, though several were near him. 
At the same time it made a large hole in the trunk of a pine tree, which grew 
about ten feet from the window. But what was most surprising in' this dis- 
aster was, that on the breast of the unfortunate man that was killed was 
the figure of a pine tree, as exactly delineated as any limner in the world 
could draw it, nay, the resemblance went so far as to represent the colour 
of the pine, as well as the figure. The lightning must probably have passed 
through the tree first before it struck the man, and by that means have printed 
the icon of it on his breast. But whatever may have been the cause, the effect 
was certain, and can be attested by a cloud of witnesses who had the curi- 
osity to go and sec this wonderful phenomenon. The worst of it was, we 
were forced to encamp in a barren place, where there was hardly a blade 
of grass to be seen, even the wild rosemary failed us here, which gave us 
but too just apprehensions that we should not only be obliged to trudge all 
the way home on foot, but also to lug our baggage at our backs into the bar- 
gain. Thus we learned by our own experience, that horses are very impro- 
per animals to use in a long ramble into the woods, and the better they have 
been used to be fed, they are still the worse. Such will fall away a great 
deal faster, and fail much sooner, than those which are wont to be at their 
own keeping. Besides, horses that have been accustomed to a plain and 
champaign country will founder presently, when they come to clamber ij,p 
hills, and batter their hoofs against continual rocks. We need Welsh runts, 
and Highland Galloways to climb our mountains withal ; they are used to 
precipices, and will bite as close as Banstead Down sheep. But I should much 
rather recommend mules, if we had them, for these long and painful expe- 
ditions; though, till they can be bred, certainly asses are the fittest beasts of 
burthen for the mountains. They are sureffooted, patient under the heaviest 
fatigue, and will subsist upon moss, or browsing on shrubs all the winter. 
One of them will carry the necessary luggage of four men, without any dif- 
ficulty, and upon a pinch will take a quarter of bear or venison upon their 
backs into the bargain. Thus, when the men are light and disengaged from 
every thing but their guns, they may go the whole journey on foot with 
pleasure. And though my dear countr^^men have so great a passion for 
riding, that they will often walk two miles to catch a horse, in order to ride 
one, yet, if they will please to take my word for it, when they go into the 
woods upon discovery, 1 would advise them by all means to march a-foot, 
for they will then be delivered from the great care and concern for their 
horses, which takes up too large a portion of their time. Over night we are 
now at the trouble of hobbling them out, and often of leading them a mile or 
two to a convenient place for forage, and then in the morning we are some 
hours in finding them again, because they are apt to stray a great way from 
the place where they were turned out. Now and then, too, they are lost for 
a whole day together, and are frequently so weak and jaded, that the com- 
pany must lie still several days, near some meadow, or highland pond, to 
