The History of Louisiana Part 23

This buffalo is the chief food of the natives, and of the French also for a long time past; the best piece is the bunch on the shoulders, the taste of which is extremely delicate. They hunt this animal in the winter; for which purpose they leave Lower Louisiana, and the river Missisippi, as he cannot penetrate thither on account of the thickness of the woods; and besides loves to feed on long gra.s.s, which is only to be found in the meadows of the high lands. In order to get near enough to fire upon him, they go against the wind, and they take aim at the hollow of the shoulder, that they may bring him to the ground at once, for if he is only slightly wounded, he runs against his enemy. The natives when hunting seldom {241} choose to kill any but the cows, having experienced that the flesh of the male smells rank; but this they might easily prevent, if they did but cut off the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es from the beast as soon as he is dead, as they do from stags and wild boars. By killing the males there is less hazard of diminishing the species than by killing the females; and besides, the males have much more tallow, and their skins are the largest and best.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Top: _Panther or Catamount_--BOTTOM: _Bison or Buffalo_]

{242} These skins are an object of no small consideration. The natives dress them with their wool on, to such great perfection, as to render them more pliable than our buff. They dye them different colours, and cloath themselves therewith. To the French they supply the place of the best blankets, being at the same time very warm and very light.

The stag is entirely the same with that of France, only he is a little larger. They are only to be found in Upper Louisiana, where the woods are much thinner than in Lower Louisiana, and the chesnuts which the stag greatly loves are very common.

The deer is very frequent in this province, notwithstanding the great numbers of them that are killed by the natives. According to the hunters, he partly resembles the stag, the rein-deer, and the roe-buck. As to myself, I can only say what I have seen; that he is about four feet high, has large horns bending forwards, and decorated with several antlers, the ends of which are formed somewhat like a rose; that his flesh is dry like that of ours, and when he is fat tastes like mutton. They feed in herds, and are not in the least of a fierce nature. They are excessively capricious, hardly remain a moment in one place, but are coming and going continually. The natives dress the skin extremely well, like buff, and afterwards paint it. Those skins that are brought to France are often called does skins.

The natives hunt the deer sometimes in companies, and sometimes alone.

The hunter who goes out alone, furnishes himself with the dried head of a deer, with part of the skin of the neck fastened to it, and this skin is stretched out with several hoops made of split cane, which are kept in their places by other splits placed along the inside of the skin, so that the hands and arms may be easily put within the neck. Being thus provided, he goes in quest of the deer, and takes all necessary precautions not to be discovered by that animal: when he sees one, he approaches it as gently as possible, hiding himself behind a bush which he carries in his hand, till he be within shot of it. But if, before he can come near enough, the buck shakes its head, which is a sign that he is going to make some {243} capers and run away, the hunter immediately counterfeits the cries of those animals when they call each other, in which case the buck frequently comes up towards him. He then shews the head which he holds in his hand, and by lowering and lifting his arm by turns, it makes the appearance of a buck feeding, and lifting his head from time to time to graze. The hunter still keeps himself behind the bush, till the buck comes near enough to him, and the moment he turns his side, he fires at the hollow of his shoulder, and lays him dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Indian Deer Hunt_]

{244} When the natives want to make the dance of the deer; or if they want to exercise themselves merrily; or if it should happen that the Great Sun inclines to such sport, they go about an hundred of them in a company to the hunting of this animals, which they must bring home alive. As it is a diverting exercise, many young men are generally of the party, who disperse themselves in the meadows among the thickets in order to discover the deer. They no sooner perceive one than they advance towards him in a wide crescent, one point of which may be a quarter of a league from the other. Part of the crescent draws near to him, which frightens him away to another point; that part likewise advancing, he immediately flies back to the other sidee. He is kept thus running from one side to another a considerable time, on purpose to exercise the young men, and afford diversion to the Great Sun, or to another Little Sun, who is nominated to supply his place. The deer sometimes attempts to get out and escape by the openings of the crescent, in which case those who are at the points run forwards, and oblige him to go back. The crescent then gradually forms a circle; and when they perceive the deer beginning to be tired, part of them stoop almost to the ground, and remain in that posture till he approaches them, when they rise and shout: he instantly flies off to the other side, where they do the same; by which means he is at length so exhausted, that he is no longer able to stand on his legs, and suffers himself to be taken like a lamb. Sometimes, however, he defends himself on the ground with his antlers and forefeet; they therefore use the precaution to seize upon him behind, and even in that case they are sometimes wounded.

The hunters having seized the deer present it to the Great Sun, or in his absence, to the person whom he sent to represent him. If he says, _well_, the roe-buck is immediately opened, and its four quarters carried to the hut of the Great Sun, who gives portions of them to the chief men among the hunters.

The wolf is not above fifteen inches high, and of a proportionable length. He is not so brown as our wolves, nor so fierce and dangerous; he is therefore more like a dog than a wolf, especially the dog of the natives, who differs from him {245} in nothing, but that he barks. The wolf is very common in the hunting countries; and when the hunter makes a hut for himself in the evening upon the bank of a river, if he sees the wolf, he may be confident that the buffaloes are not at a very great distance. It is said, that this animal, not daring to attack the buffalo when in a herd, will come and give notice to the hunter that he may kill him, in hopes of coming in for the offals. The wolves are actually so familiar, that they come and go on all sides when looking for something to eat, without minding in the least whether they be near or at a distance from the habitations of men.

In my time two very large black wolves were seen in Louisiana. The oldest inhabitants, and those who travel to the remotest parts of the colony, declared that they had never before seen any such; from whence it was concluded, that they were foreign wolves which had lost their way. Fortunately they killed them both; for one of them was a she-wolf big with young.

The bear appears in Louisiana in winter, as the snows, which then cover the northern climates, hinder him from procuring a subsistence there, and force him southwards. If some few are seen in the summer time, they are only the slow young bears, that have not been strong enough to follow the herd northwards. The bear lives upon roots and fruits, particularly acorns; but this most delicate food is honey and milk. When he meets with either of these last, he will suffer himself to be killed than quit his prize. Our colonists have sometimes diverted themselves by burying a small pail with some milk in it almost up to the edge in the ground, and setting two young bears to it. The contest then was which of the two should hinder the other from tasting the milk, and both of them so tore the earth with their paws, and pulled at the pail, that they generally overturned the milk, before either of them had tasted of it.

In opposition to the general opinion, which supposes the bear a carnivorous animal, I affirm, with all the inhabitants of this colony, and the neighbouring countries, that he never feeds upon flesh. It is indeed to be lamented that the first {246} travellers had the impudence to publish to the world a thousand false stories, which were easily believed because they were new. People, so far from wishing to be undeceived, have even been offended with those who attempted to detect the general errors; but it is my duty to speak the truth, for the sake of those who are willing to hear it. What I maintain here is not a mere conjectural supposition, but a known fact over all North America, which may be attested by the evidence of a great number of people who have lived there, and by the traders who are going and coming continually. There is not one instance can be given of their having devoured men, notwithstanding their great mult.i.tudes, and the extreme hunger which they must sometimes have suffered; for even in that case they never so much as touch the butchers meat which they meet with.

The bears seldom quit the banks of the Missisippi, as it is there that they can best procure a subsistence; but when I lived at the Natchez there happened so severe a winter, that those animals came from the north in such numbers that they starved each other, and were very lean. Their great hunger obliged them to quit the woods which line the banks of the river: they were seen at night running among the settlements; and they sometimes even entered those court-yards that were not well shut; they there found butchers meat exposed to the open air, but they never touched it, and eat only the corn or roots they could meet with. Certainly on such occasion as this, and in such a pressing want, they would have proved carnivorous, if it had been in the least degree their natural disposition.

But perhaps one will say, "It is true they never touch dead flesh; it is only living flesh that they devour." That is being very delicate indeed, and what I can by no means allow them: for if they were flesh-eaters, I greatly suspect that, in the severe famine which I have spoken of, they would have made a hearty meal of the butchers meat which they found in the court-yards; or at least would have devoured several persons, who fell in their way, which they never did.

The following fact however will be a more compleat answer to this objection.

{247} Two Canadians, who were on a journey, landed on a sand-bank, when they perceived a bear crossing the river. As he appeared fat, and consequently would yield a great deal of oil, one of the travellers ran forwards and fired at him. Unhappily however he only slightly wounded him; and as the bears in that case always turn upon their enemy, the hunter was immediately seized by the wounded bear, who in a few moments squeezed him to death, without wounding him in the least with his teeth, although his muzzle was against his face, and he must certainly have been exasperated. The other Canadian, who was not above three hundred paces distance, ran to save his comrade with the utmost speed, but he was dead before he came up to him; and the bear escaped into the wood. Upon examining the corpse he found the place, where the bear had squeezed it, pressed in two inches more than the rest of the breast.

Some perhaps may still add, that the mildness of the climate of Louisiana may have an effect upon the disposition of the bears, and prevent them from being so voracious as those of our continent; but I affirm that carnivorous animals retain the same disposition in all countries. The wolves of Louisiana are carnivorous as well as those of Europe, although they differ in other particulars. The tigers of Africa, and those of America, are equally mischievous animals. The wild-cats of America, though very different from those of Europe, have however the same appet.i.te for mice when they are tamed. It is the same with other species, naturally inclined to live upon other animals; and the bears of America, if flesh-eaters, would not quit the countries covered with snow, where they would find men and other animals in abundance, to come so far in search of fruits and roots; which kind of nourishment carnivorous animals refuse to taste.

[Footnote: Since I wrote the above account of the bears, I have been certainly informed, that in the mountains of Savoy there are two sorts of bears. The one black, like that of Louisiana, and not carnivorous; the other red, and no less carnivorous than the wolves. Both turn upon their enemy when wounded.]

Bears are seen very frequently in Louisiana in the winter time, and they are so little dreaded, that the people sometimes {248} make it a diversion to hunt them. When they are fat, that is about the end of December, they cannot run so fast as a man; therefore the hunters are in no danger if they should turn upon them. The she-bears are tolerably fat when they are big with young; but after they have littered they quickly become lean.

The bears usually arrive in Louisiana towards the end of autumn; and then they are very lean, as they do not leave the north till the earth be wholly covered with snow, and find often but a very scanty subsistence in their way southwards. I said above, that those animals seldom go to any great distance from the river; and on both banks travellers meet with such a beaten path in winter, that to those who are not acquainted with it, it appears like the track of men. I myself, the first time I observed it, was deceived by it. I was then near two hundred miles from any human dwelling, yet the path at first appeared to me as if it had been made by thousands of men, who had walked that way bare-footed. Upon a narrower inspection however, I observed, that the prints of the feet were shorter than that of a man, and that there was the impression of a claw at the end of each toe. It is proper to observe that in those paths the bear does not pique himself upon politeness, and will yield the way to n.o.body; therefore it is prudent in a traveller not to fall out with him for such a trifling affair.

The bears, after they have been a short time in the country, and found abundance of fruits, turn fat and lazy, and it is then the natives go out to hunt them. The bear, when he is fat, huts himself, that is, retires into the hollow trunk of some rotten tree that has died on end. The natives, when they meet with any of those trees, which they suspect contains a bear in it, give two or three strong blows against the trunk, and immediately run behind the next tree opposite to the lowest breach. If there be a bear within, he appears in a few minutes at the breach, to look out and spy the occasion of the disturbance; but upon observing nothing likely to annoy him, he goes down again to the bottom of his castle.

The natives having once seen their prey, gather a heap of dried canes, which they bruise with their feet, that they may {249} burn the easier, and one of them mounting upon a tree adjoining to that in which the bear is, sets fire to the reeds, and darts them one after another into the breach; the other hunters having planted themselves in ambuscade upon other trees. The bear is quickly burned out of his habitation, and he no sooner appears on the outside, than they let fly their arrows at him, and often kill him before he gets to the bottom of the tree.

He is no sooner dead than some of the hunters are dispatched to look for a deer, and they seldom fail of bringing in one or two. When a deer is brought, they cut off the head, and then take off the skin whole, beginning at the neck, and rolling it down, as they cut it, like a stocking. The legs they cut off at the knee-joints, and having cleaned and washed the skin, they stop all the holes except the neck, with a kind of paste made of the fat of the deer mixed with ashes, over which they tie several bindings with the bark of the lime-tree.

Having thus provided a kind of cask, they fill it with the oil of the bear, which they prepare by boiling the flesh and fat together. This Deer of Oil, as it is called, they sell to the French for a gun, a yard of cloth, or any other thing of that value. The French, before they use it, purify it, by putting it into a large kettle, with a handful of laurel leaves; and sprinkling it when it begins to be hot with some water, in which they have dissolved a large quant.i.ty of salt. The smoke that rises upon this sprinkling carries off with it any bad smell the fat may have; they next pour it off into a vessel, and eight days after there is found on the top of it a clear oil which serves all the purposes of olive oil; what remains below is a fine kind of lard, proper for the kitchen, and a sovereign remedy for all kinds of pains. I myself was cured of the rheumatism in my shoulder by it.

The Tiger is not above a foot and a half high, and long in proportion: his hair is somewhat of a bright bay colour, and he is brisk as all tigers naturally are. His flesh when boiled tastes like veal, only it is not so insipid. There are very few of them to be seen; I never saw but two near my settlement; and I have great reason to think that it was the same beast I saw both times. The first time he laid hold of my dog, who barked and howled; but upon my running towards him the {250} tiger left him. The next time he seized a pig; but this I likewise rescued, and his claws had gone no deeper than the fat. This animal is not more carnivorous than fearful; he flies at the sight of a man, and makes off with greater speed, if you shout and halloo as he runs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOP: _Wild Cat_--MIDDLE: _Opossum_--BOTTOM: _Skunk_]

The Cat-a-mount is a kind of wild cat, as high as the tiger, but not so thick, and his skin is extremely beautiful. He is a great destroyer of poultry, but fortunately his species is rare.

{251} Foxes are so numerous, that upon the woody heights you frequently see nothing but their holes. As the woods afford them plenty of game, they do not molest the poultry, which are always allowed to run at large. The foxes are exactly shaped like ours, but their skin is much more beautiful. Their hair is fine and thick, of a deep brown colour, and over this rise several long silver-coloured hairs, which have a fine effect.

The Wild Cat has been improperly so called by the first French settlers in Louisiana; for it has nothing of the cat but its nimble activity, and rather resembles a monkey. It is not above eight or ten inches high, and about fifteen long. Its head is like that of a fox; it has long toes, but very short claws, not made for seizing game; accordingly it lives upon fruit, bread, and other such things. This animal may be tamed, and then becomes very frolicksome and full of tricks. The hair of those that are tame is grey; but of the wild is reddish; neither of them is so beautiful as that of the fox; it grows very fat, and its flesh is good to eat. I shall not describe the real wild cat, as it is entirely like ours.

The Rabbit is extremely common over all Louisiana; it is particular in this, that its pile is like that of the hare, and it never burrows.

Its flesh is white and delicate, and has the usual taste, without any rankness. There is no other kind of rabbit or hare, if you please to call it, in all the colony, than that above described.

The Wood-Rat has the head and tail of a common rat, but has the bulk and length of a cat. Its legs are short, its paws long, and its toes are armed with claws: its tail is almost without hair, which serves for hooking itself to any thing; for when you take hold of it by that part, it immediately twists itself round your finger. Its pile is grey, and though very fine, yet is never smooth. The women among the natives spin it and dye it red. It hunts by night, and makes war upon the poultry, only sucking their blood and leaving their flesh. It is very rare to see any creature walk so slow; and I have often catched them when walking my ordinary pace. When he sees himself upon the point of being caught, instinct prompts him to counterfeit being dead; and in this he perseveres with such {252} constancy, that though laid on a hot gridiron, he will not make the least sign of life. He never moves, unless the person go to a distance or hide himself, in which case he endeavors as fast as possible to escape into some hole or bush.

When the she-one is about to litter, she chooses a place in the thick bushes at the foot of a tree, after which she and the male crop a great deal of fine dry gra.s.s, which is loaded upon her belly, and then the male drags her and her burden by the tail to the littering-place.

She never quits her young a moment; but when she is obliged to change her lodging, carries them with her in a pouch or double skin that wraps round her belly, and there they may sleep or suck at their ease.

The two sides of this pouch lap so close that the joining can hardly be observed; nor can they be separated without tearing the skin. If the she-one be caught carrying her young thus with her, she will suffer herself to be roasted alive, without the least sign of life, rather than open the pouch and expose her young ones. The flesh of this animal is very good, and tastes somewhat like that of a sucking pig, when it is first broiled, and afterwards roasted on the spit.

The Pole-cat or Skunk is about the size of a kitten eight months old.

The male is of a beautiful black, but the female has rings of white intermixed with the black. Its ear and its paw are like that of a mouse, and it has a very lively eye. I suppose it lives upon fruits and seeds. It is most justly called the Stinking Beast, for its odour is so strong, that it may be pursued upon the track twenty-four hours after it has pa.s.sed. It goes very slow, and when the hunter approaches it, it squirts out, far and wide such a stinking urine, that neither man nor beast can hardly approach it. A drop of this creature's blood, and probably some of its urine, having one day fallen upon my coat when I was hunting, I was obliged as fast as possible to go home and change my cloaths; and before I, could use my coat, it was scoured and exposed for several days to the dew.

The Squirrels of Louisiana are like those of France, excepting one kind, which are called Flying-Squirrels, because they leap from one tree to another, though the distance between them be twenty-five or thirty feet. It is about the size of a {253} rat, and of a deep ash-colour. Its two fore-legs are joined to its two hind-legs by two membranes, so that when it leaps it seems to fly, though it always leaps somewhat downwards. This animal may be very easily tamed; but even then it is best to chain it. There is another sort, not much bigger than a mouse, and of a bright bay-colour. These are so familiar that they will come out of the woods, will enter the houses, and sit within two yards of the people of the house, if they do not make any motion; and there they will feed on any maiz within their reach. I never was so well diverted in my life with the frolics of any animal, as I have been with the vivacity and att.i.tudes of this little squirrel.

The Porcupine is large and fine of this kind; but as he lives only upon fruit, and loves cold, is most common about the river Illinois, where the climate is somewhat cold, and there is plenty of wild fruits. The skin, when stripped of the quills, is white and brown. The natives dye part of the white, yellow and red, and the brown they dye black. They have likewise the art of splitting the skin, and applying it to many curious works, particularly to trim the edges of their deer-skin, and to line small bark-boxes, which are very neat.

The Hedge-hog of Louisiana is in every respect the same with that of Europe.

I shall not enlarge upon the Beavers, which are universally known, from the many descriptions we have of them.

The Otters are the same with those of France, and there are but few of them to be seen.

Some Turtle are seen in this country; but very rarely. In the many hundred leagues of country that I have pa.s.sed over, I have hardly seen above a hundred.

Frogs are very common, especially in Lower Louisiana, notwithstanding the great number of snakes that destroy them. There are some that grow very large, sometimes above a foot and a half long, and astonish strangers at first by their croaking especially if they are in a hollow tree.

The Crocodile is very common in the river Missisippi. Although this amphibious animal be almost as well known as {254} those I have just mentioned, I cannot however omit taking some notice of it. Without troubling the reader with a description of it, which he will meet with every where, I shall observe that it shuns the banks of the river frequented by men. It lays its eggs in the months of May, when the sun is already hot in that country, and it deposits them in the most concealed place it can find among gra.s.s exposed to the heats of the south. The eggs are about the size of those of a goose, but longer in proportion. Upon breaking them you will find hardly any thing but white, the yolk being about the size of that of a young hen. I never saw any that were new hatched. The smallest I ever met with, which I concluded to be about three months old, was as long as a middle-sized eel, and an inch and a half thick. I have killed one nineteen feet long, and three feet and a half in its greatest breadth. A friend of mine killed one twenty-two feet long, and the legs of both these, which on land seemed to move with great difficulty, were not above a foot in length. But however sluggish they be on land, in the water they move with great agility.

This animal has his body always covered with slime, which is the case with all fishes that live in muddy waters. When he comes on sh.o.r.e his track is covered with that slime, as his belly trails on the ground, and this renders the earth very slippery in that part, especially as he returns by the same path to the water. He never hunts the fish upon which he subsists; but places himself in ambuscade, and catches them as they pa.s.s. For that purpose he digs a hole in the bank of the river, below the surface of the water, where the current is strong, having a small entrance, but large enough within to turn himself round in. The fish, which are fatigued with the strong current, are glad to get into the smooth water in that corner, and there they are immediately seized by the crocodile.

I shall not contradict the accounts of venerable antiquity about the crocodiles of the Nile, who fall upon men and devour them; who cross the roads, and make a slippery path upon them to trip pa.s.sengers, and make them slide into the river; who counterfeit the voice of an infant, to draw children into their snares; neither shall I contradict the travellers who have {255} confirmed those stories from mere hearsays. But as I profess to speak the truth, and to advance nothing but what I am certain of from my own knowledge, I may safely affirm that the crocodiles of Louisiana are doubtless of another species than those of other countries. In fact, I never heard them imitate the cries of an infant, nor is it at all probable that they can counterfeit them. Their voice is as strong as that of a bull. It is true they attack men in the water, but never on land, where they are not at all formidable. Besides, there are nations that in great part subsist upon this animal, which is hunted out by the fathers and mothers, and killed by the children. What can we then believe of those stories that have been told us of the crocodile? I myself killed all that ever I met of them; and they are so much the less to be dreaded, in that they can neither run nor rise up against a man. In the water indeed, which is their favourite element, they are dangerous; but in that case it is easy to guard against them.

The largest of all the reptiles of Louisiana, is the Rattle-Snake: some of them have been seen fifteen inches thick, and long in proportion; but this species is naturally shorter in proportion to their thickness than the other kinds of serpents. This serpent gets its name from several hollow knots at its tail, very thin and dry, which make a rattling noise. These knots, though inserted into each other, are yet quite detached, and only the first of them is fastened to the skin. The number of the knots, it is said, marks the age of the serpent, and I am much inclined to believe it; for as I have killed a great number of them, I always observed, that the longer and thicker the serpent was, it had the more knots. Its skin is almost black; but the lower part of its belly is striped black and white.

As soon as it hears or sees a man, it rouses itself by shaking its tail, which makes a rattling noise that may be heard at several paces distance, and gives warning to the traveller to be upon his guard. It is much to be dreaded when it coils itself up in a spiral line, for then it may easily dart upon a man. It shuns the habitations of men, and by a singular providence, wherever it retires to, there the herb which cures its bite, is likewise to be found.

{256} [Ill.u.s.tration: TOP: _Alligator_--MIDDLE: _Rattle Snake_--BOTTOM: _Green Snake_]

There are several other kinds of serpents to be seen here, some of which resemble those of France, and attempt to slip into the hen-houses to devour the eggs and new-hatched chickens. Others are green, about two feet long, and not thicker than a goose-quill; they frequent the meadows, and may be seen running over the spires of gra.s.s, such is their lightness and nimbleness.