and about two hours before day, the two old

XVI.

THE PRAIRIE AND THE SWAMP.

AN ADVENTURE IN LOUISIANA.

It was a sultry September afternoon in the year 1843. My friend Carleton and myself had been three days wandering about the prairies, and had nearly filled our tin boxes and other receptacles with specimens of rare and curious plants. But we had not escaped paying the penalty of our zeal as naturalists, in the shape of a perfect roasting from the sun, which had shot down its rays during the whole time of our ramble, with an ardour only to be appreciated by those who have visited the Louisianian prairies. What made matters worse, our little store of wine had been early expended; some taffia, with which we had replenished our flasks, had also disappeared; and the water we met

with, besides being rare, contained so much vegetable and animal matter, as to be undrinkable unless qualified in some manner. In this dilemma, we came to a halt under a clump of hickory trees, and dispatched Martin, Carleton's Acadian servant, upon a voyage of discovery. He had assured us

that we must ere long fall in with some party of Americans-or Cochon Yankees, as he called them-who, in spite of the hatred borne them by the Acadians and Creoles, were daily becoming more. numerous in the country.

After waiting, in anxious expectation of Martin's return, for a full hour, during which the air seemed to get more and more sultry, my companion began to wax impatient. "What can the fellow be about?" cried he. "Give a blast on the horn," he added, handing me the instrument: "I cannot sound it myself, for my tongue cleaves to my palate from heat and drought."

I put the horn to my mouth and gave a. blast. But the tones emitted were not the clear echo-awakening sounds that cheer and strengthen the hunter. They were dull and short, as though the air had lost all elasticity and vibration, and by its weight crushed back the sounds into the horn. It was a warning

of some inscrutable danger. We gazed around us, and saw that others were not wanting.

The spot where we had halted was on the edge of one of the pine forests that extend, almost without interruption, from the hills of the Cote Gelée to the Opelousa mountains, and of a vast prairie, sprinkled here and there with palmetto fields, clumps of trees, and broad patches of brushwood, which appeared mere dark specks on the immense extent of plain that lay before us, covered with grass of the brightest green, and so long as to reach up to our horses' shoulders. To the right was a plantation of palmettos, half a mile wide, and bounded by a sort of creek or gully, the banks of which were covered with gigantic cypress trees. Beyond this, more prairie and a wood of evergreen oak. To the east, an impenetrable thicket of magnolias, papaws, oak and bean trees-to the north, the pine wood before mentioned.

But

Such was the rich landscape we had been surrounded by a short hour before. now, on looking around, we found the scene changed; and our horizon became far more limited by rising clouds of bluish grey vapour, which approached us rapidly from the wind quarter.

The air was so hot and parching, that our horses' coats, which a short time previously had been dripping with sweat, were now perfectly dry, and the hair plastered upon them; the animals' tongues hung out of their mouths, and they seemed panting for cooler air. "Look yonder!" cried Carleton, and he pointed to the line of the horizon, which had hitherto been of grey, lead-coloured vapour. It was now becoming reddish in the south-west quarter, and the vapour had taken the appearance of smoke. At the same time we heard a sort of distant crackling, like a heavy running-fire of musketry, and which was repeated at short intervals. Each time it was heard, our horses appeared scared and trembling.

The creek was getting rapidly wider, and the ground so swampy that it was impossible to proceed further. Seeing this, we agreed to return to the prairie, and to try if it were not cooler among the palmettos. But when we came to the place where we had crossed. the creek, our horses refused to take the leap again, and it was with the greatest difficulty we at length forced them over. All this time the redness in the horizon was getting brighter, and the atmosphere hotter and drier; the smoke had spread itself over