122 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
come to being a hunter and miss it, myself; and as it 
is, I think that I could spend a year in the woods, fish¬ 
ing and hunting, just enough to sustain myself, with 
satisfaction. This would be next to living like a phi¬ 
losopher on the fruits of the earth which you had raised, 
which also attracts me. But this hunting of the moose 
merely for the satisfaction of killing him,— not even 
for the sake of his hide, — without making any extraor¬ 
dinary exertion or running any risk yourself, is too 
much like going out by night to some wood-side pasture 
and shooting your neighbor’s horses. These are God’s 
own horses, poor, timid creatures, that will run fast 
enough as soon as they smell you, though they are nine 
feet high. Joe told us of some hunters who a year or 
two before had shot down several oxen by night, some¬ 
where in the Maine woods, mistaking them for moose. 
And so might any of the hunters; and what is the dif¬ 
ference in the sport, but the name ? In the former case, 
having killed one of God’s and your own oxen, you strip 
off its hide, — because that is the common trophy, and, 
moreover, you have heard that it may be sold for moc¬ 
casins, — cut a steak from its haunches, and leave the 
huge carcass to smell to heaven for you. It is no better, 
at least, than to assist at a slaughter-house. 
This afternoon’s experience suggested to me how base 
or coarse are the motives which commonly carry men 
into the wilderness. The explorers and lumberers gen¬ 
erally are all hirelings, paid so much a day for their 
labor, and as such they have no more love for wild 
nature than wood-sawyers have for forests. Other white 
men and Indians who come here are for the most part 
hunters, whose object is to slay as many moose and 
other wild animals as possible. But, pray, could not 
