THE DIVIDING LINE 
73 
could learn that the Indians set apart any day of the week or the year for 
the service of God. They pray, as philosophers eat, only when they have a 
stomach, without having any set time for it. Indeed these idle people have 
very little occasion for a sabbath to refresh themselves after hard labour, be- 
cause very few of them ever labour at all. Like the wild Irish, they would 
rather want than work, and are all men of pleasure, to whom every day is 
a day of rest. Indeed, in their hunting, they will take a little pains; but this 
being only a diversion, their spirits are rather raised than depressed by it, 
and therefore need at most but a night’s sleep to recruit them. 
4th. By some stakes we had driven into the river yesterday, we perceived 
the water began to fall, but fell so slowly that we found we must have pa- 
tience a day or two longer. And because we were unwilling to lie altoge- 
ther idle, we sent back some of the men to bring up the two horses that tired 
the Saturday before. They were found near the place where we had left 
them, but seemed too sensible of their liberty to come to us. They were 
found . standing indeed, but as motionless as the equestrian statue at Charing- 
Cross. We had great reason to apprehend more rain by the clouds that 
drove over our heads. The boldest amongst us were not without some 
pangs of uneasiness at so very sullen a prospect. However, God be praised \ 
it all blew over in a few hours. If much rain had fallen, we resolved to 
make a raft and bind it together with grape vines, to ferry ourselves and 
baggage over the river. Though, in that case, we expected the swiftness of 
the stream would have carried down our raft a long way before we could 
have tugged it to the opposite shore. 
One of the young fellows we had sent to bring up the tired horses enter- 
tained us in the evening with a remarkable adventure he had met with that 
day. He had straggled, it seems, from his company in a mist, and made a 
cub of a year old betake itself to a tree. While he was new-priming his 
piece, with intent to fetch it down, the old gentlewoman appeared, and per- 
ceiving her heir apparent in distress, advanced open-mouthed to his relief. 
The man was so intent upon his game, that she had approached very near 
him before he perceived her. But finding his danger, he faced about upon 
the enemy, which immediately reared upon her posteriors, and put herself in 
battle array. The man, admiring at the bear’s assurance, endeavoured to fire 
upon her, but by the dampness of the priming, his gun did not go off. He 
cocked it a second time, and had the same misfortune. After missing fire 
twice, he had the folly to punch the beast with the muzzle of his piece ; but 
mother Bruin, being upon her guard, seized the weapon with her paws, and 
by main strength wrenched it out of the fellow’s hands. The man being 
thus fairly disarmed, thought himself no longer a match for the enemy, and 
therefore retreated as fast as his legs- could carry him. The brute naturally 
grew bolder upon the flight of her adversary, and pursued him with all her 
heavy speed. For some time it was doubtful whether fear made one rUn 
faster, or fury the other. But after an even course of about fifty yards, the 
man had the mishap to stumble over a stump, and fell down at his full length. 
He now wouldhave sold his life a penny-worth ; but the bear, apprehending 
there might be some trick in the fall, instantly halted, and looked with much 
attention on her prostrate foe. In the mean while, the man had with great 
presence of mind resolved to make the bear believe be was dead, by lying 
breathless on the ground, in hopes that the beast would be too generous to 
kill him over again. To carry on the farce, he acted the corpse for some 
time without daring to raise his head, to see how near the monster was to 
him. But in about two minutes, to his unspeakable comfort, he was raised 
from the dead by the barking of a dog, belonging to one of his companions, 
who came seasonably to his rescue, and drove the bear from pursuing the 
