The Hunters' Feast Part 2

"I think I had rowed some three miles up-stream, and was about to take in my oars and leave my boat to float back again, when I perceived that, a little farther up, the bayou widened. Curiosity prompted me to continue; and after pulling a few hundred strokes, I found myself at the end of an oblong lake, a mile or so in length. It was deep, dark, marshy around the sh.o.r.es, and full of alligators. I saw their ugly forms and long serrated backs, as they floated about in all parts of it, hungrily hunting for fish and eating one another; but all this was nothing new, for I had witnessed similar scenes during the whole of my excursion. What drew my attention most, was a small islet near the middle of the lake, upon one end of which stood a row of upright forms of a bright scarlet colour. These red creatures were the very objects I was in search of. They might be flamingoes: I could not tell at that distance. So much the better, if I could only succeed in getting a shot at them; but these creatures are even more wary than the ibis; and as the islet was low, and altogether without cover, it was not likely they would allow me to come within range: nevertheless, I was determined to make the attempt. I rowed up the lake, occasionally turning my head to see if the game had taken the alarm. The sun was hot and dazzling; and as the bright scarlet was magnified by refraction, I fancied for a long time they were flamingoes. This fancy was dissipated as I drew near.

The outlines of the bills, like the blade of a sabre, convinced me they were the ibis; besides, I now saw that they were less than three feet in height, while the flamingoes stand five. There were a dozen of them in all. These were balancing themselves, as is their usual habit, on one leg, apparently asleep, or _buried in deep thought_. They were on the upper extremity of the islet, while I was approaching it from below. It was not above sixty yards across; and could I only reach the point nearest me, I knew my gun would throw shot to kill at that distance. I feared the stroke of the sculls would start them, and I pulled slowly and cautiously. Perhaps the great heat--for it was as hot a day as I can remember--had rendered them torpid or lazy. Whether or not, they sat still until the cut-water of my skiff touched the bank of the islet.

I drew my gun up cautiously, took aim, and fired both barrels almost simultaneously. When the smoke cleared out of my eyes, I saw that all the birds had flown off except one, that lay stretched out by the edge of the water.

"Gun in hand, I leaped out of the boat, and ran across the islet to bag my game. This occupied but a few minutes; and I was turning to go back to the skiff, when, to my consternation, I saw it out upon the lake, and rapidly floating downward!

"In my haste I had left it unfastened, and the bayou current had carried it off. It was still but a hundred yards distant, but it might as well have been a hundred miles, for at that time I could not swim a stroke.

"My first impulse was to rush down to the lake, and after the boat.

This impulse was checked on arriving at the water's edge, which I saw at a glance was fathoms in depth. Quick reflection told me that the boat was gone--irrecoverably gone!

"I did not at first comprehend the full peril of my situation; nor will you, gentlemen. I was on an islet, in a lake, only half a mile from its sh.o.r.es--alone, it is true, and without a boat; but what of that? Many a man had been so before, with not an idea of danger.

"These were first thoughts, natural enough; but they rapidly gave place to others of a far different character. When I gazed after my boat, now beyond recovery--when I looked around, and saw that the lake lay in the middle of an interminable swamp, the sh.o.r.es of which, even could I have reached them, did not seem to promise me footing--when I reflected that, being unable to swim, I could _not_ reach them--that upon the islet there was neither tree, nor log, nor bush; not a stick out of which I might make a raft--I say, when I reflected upon all these things, there arose in my mind a feeling of well-defined and absolute horror.

"It is true I was only in a lake, a mile or so in width; but so far as the peril and helplessness of my situation were concerned, I might as well have been upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. I knew that there was no settlement within miles--miles of pathless swamp. I knew that no one could either see or hear me--no one was at all likely to come near the lake; indeed, I felt satisfied that my faithless boat was the first keel that had ever cut its waters. The very tameness of the birds wheeling round my head was evidence of this. I felt satisfied, too, that without some one to help me, I should never go out from that lake: I must die on the islet, or drown in attempting to leave it!

"These reflections rolled rapidly over my startled soul. The facts were clear, the hypothesis definite, the sequence certain; there was no ambiguity, no supposit.i.tious hinge upon which I could hang a hope; no, not one. I could not even expect that I should be missed and sought for; there was no one to search for me. The simple _habitans_ of the village I had left knew me not--I was a stranger among them: they only knew me as a stranger, and fancied me a strange individual; one who made lonely excursions, and brought home hunches of weeds, with birds, insects, and reptiles, which they had never before seen, although gathered at their own doors. My absence, besides, would be nothing new to them, even though it lasted for days: I had often been absent before, a week at a time. There was no hope of my being missed.

"I have said that these reflections came and pa.s.sed quickly. In less than a minute, my affrighted soul was in full possession of them, and almost yielded itself to despair. I shouted, but rather involuntarily than with any hope that I should be heard; I shouted loudly and fiercely: my answer--the echoes of my own voice, the shriek of the osprey, and the maniac laugh of the white-headed eagle.

"I ceased to shout, threw my gun to the earth, and tottered down beside it. I can imagine the feelings of a man shut up in a gloomy prison-- they are not pleasant. I have been lost upon the wild prairie--the land sea--without bush, break, or star to guide me--that was worse. There you look around; you see nothing; you hear nothing: you are alone with G.o.d, and you tremble in his presence; your senses swim; your brain reels; you are afraid of yourself; you are afraid of your own mind.

Deserted by everything else, you dread lest it, too, may forsake you.

There is horror in this--it is very horrible--it is hard to bear; but I have borne it all, and would bear it again twenty times over rather than endure once more the first hour I spent on that lonely islet in that lonely lake. Your prison may be dark and silent, but you feel that you are not utterly alone; beings like yourself are near, though they be your jailers. Lost on the prairie, you are alone; but you are free. In the islet, I felt that I was alone; that I was not free: in the islet I experienced the feelings of the prairie and the prison combined.

"I lay in a state of stupor--almost unconscious; how long I know not, but many hours I am certain; I knew this by the sun--it was going down when I awoke, if I may so term the recovery of my stricken senses. I was aroused by a strange circ.u.mstance: I was surrounded by dark objects of hideous shape and hue--reptiles they were. They had been before my eyes for some time, but I had not seen them. I had only a sort of dreamy consciousness of their presence; but I heard them at length: my ear was in better tune, and the strange noises they uttered reached my intellect. It sounded like the blowing of great bellows, with now and then a note harsher and louder, like the roaring of a bull. This startled me, and I looked up and bent my eyes upon the objects: they were forms of the _crocodilidae_, the giant lizards--they were alligators.

"Huge ones they were, many of them; and many were they in number--a hundred at least were crawling over the islet, before, behind, and on all sides around me. Their long gaunt jaws and channelled snouts projected forward so as almost to touch my body; and their eyes, usually leaden, seemed now to glare.

"Impelled by this new danger, I sprang to my feet, when, recognising the upright form of man, the reptiles scuttled off, and plunging hurriedly into the lake; hid their hideous bodies under the water.

"The incident in some measure revived me. I saw that I was not alone; there was company even in the crocodiles. I gradually became more myself; and began to reflect with some degree of coolness on the circ.u.mstances that surrounded me. My eyes wandered over the islet; every inch of it came under my glance; every object upon it was scrutinised--the moulted feathers of wildfowl, the pieces of mud, the fresh-water mussels (_unios_) strewed upon its beach--all were examined.

Still the barren answer--no means of escape.

"The islet was but the head of a sand-bar, formed by the eddy, perhaps gathered together within the year. It was bare of herbage, with the exception of a few tufts of gra.s.s. There was neither tree nor bush upon it: not a stick. A raft indeed! There was not wood enough to make a raft that would have floated a frog. The idea of a raft was but briefly entertained; such a thought had certainly crossed my mind, but a single glance round the islet dispelled it before it had taken shape.

"I paced my prison from end to end; from side to side I walked it over.

I tried the water's depth; on all sides I sounded it, wading recklessly in; everywhere it deepened rapidly as I advanced. Three lengths of myself from the islet's edge, and I was up to the neck. The huge reptiles swam around, snorting and blowing; they were bolder in this element. I could not have waded safely ash.o.r.e, even had the water been shallow. To swim it--no--even though I swam like a duck, they would have closed upon and quartered me before I could have made a dozen strokes. Horrified by their demonstrations, I hurried back upon dry ground, and paced the islet with dripping garments.

"I continued walking until night, which gathered around me dark and dismal. With night came new voices--the hideous voices of the nocturnal swamp; the qua-qua of the night-heron, the screech of the swamp-owl, the cry of the bittern, the cl-l-uk of the great water-toad, the tinkling of the bell-frog, and the chirp of the savanna-cricket--all fell upon my ear. Sounds still harsher and more, hideous were heard around me--the plashing of the alligator, and the roaring of his voice; these reminded me that I must not go to sleep. To sleep! I durst not have slept for a single instant. Even when I lay for a few minutes motionless, the dark reptiles came crawling round me--so close that I could have put forth my hand and touched them.

"At intervals, I sprang to my feet, shouted, swept my gun around, and chased them back to the water, into which they betook themselves with a sullen plunge, but with little semblance of fear. At each fresh demonstration on my part they showed less alarm, until I could no longer drive them either with shouts or threatening gestures. They only retreated a few feet, forming an irregular circle round me.

"Thus hemmed in, I became frightened in turn. I loaded my gun and fired; I killed none. They are impervious to a bullet, except in the eye, or under the forearm. It was too dark to aim at these parts; and my shots glanced harmlessly from the pyramidal scales of their bodies.

The loud report, however, and the blaze frightened them, and they fled, to return again after a long interval. I was asleep when they returned; I had gone to sleep in spite of my efforts to keep awake. I was startled by the touch of something cold; and half-stilled by the strong musky odour that filled the air. I threw out my arms; my fingers rested upon an object slippery and clammy: it was one of these monsters--one of gigantic size. He had crawled close alongside me, and was preparing to make his attack; as I saw that he was bent in the form of a bow, and I knew that these creatures a.s.sume that att.i.tude when about to strike their victim. I was just in time to spring aside, and avoid the stroke of his powerful tail, that the next moment swept the ground where I had lain. Again I fired, and he with the rest once more retreated to the lake.

"All thoughts of going to sleep were at an end. Not that I felt wakeful; on the contrary, wearied with my day's exertion--for I had had a long pull under a hot tropical sun--I could have lain down upon the earth, in the mud, anywhere, and slept in an instant. Nothing but the dread certainty of my peril kept me awake. Once again before morning, I was compelled to battle with the hideous reptiles, and chase them away with a shot from my gun.

"Morning came at length, but with it no change in my perilous position.

The light only showed me my island prison, but revealed no way of escape from it. Indeed, the change could not be called for the better, for the fervid rays of an almost vertical sun poured down upon me until my skin blistered. I was already speckled by the bites of a thousand swamp-flies and mosquitoes, that all night long had preyed upon me.

There was not a cloud in the heavens to shade me; and the sunbeams smote the surface of the dead bayou with a double intensity.

"Towards evening, I began to hunger; no wonder at that: I had not eaten since leaving the village settlement. To a.s.suage thirst, I drank the water of the lake, turbid and slimy as it was. I drank it in large quant.i.ties, for it was hot, and only moistened my palate without quenching the craving of my appet.i.te. Of water there was enough; I had more to fear from want of food.

"What could I eat? The ibis. But how to cook it? There was nothing wherewith to make a fire--not a stick. No matter for that. Cooking is a modern invention, a luxury for pampered palates. I divested the ibis of its brilliant plumage, and ate it raw. I spoiled my specimen, but at the time there was little thought of that: there was not much of the naturalist left in me. I anathematised the hour I had ever promised to procure the bird. I wished my friend up to his neck in a swamp.

"The ibis did not weigh above three pounds, bones and all. It served me for a second meal, a breakfast; but at this _dejeuner sans fourchette_ I picked the bones.

"What next? starve? No--not yet. In the battles I had had with the alligators during the second night, one of them had received a shot that proved mortal. The hideous carca.s.s of the reptile lay dead upon the beach. I need not starve; I could eat that. Such were my reflections.

I must hunger, though, before I could bring myself to touch the musky morsel.

"Two more days' fasting conquered my squeamishness. I drew out my knife, cut a steak from the alligator's tail, and ate it--not the one I had first killed, but a second; the other was now putrid, rapidly decomposing under the hot sun: its odour filled the islet.

"The stench had grown intolerable. There was not a breath of air stirring, otherwise I might have shunned it by keeping to windward. The whole atmosphere of the islet, as well as a large circle around it, was impregnated with the fearful effluvium. I could bear it no longer.

With the aid of my gun, I pushed the half-decomposed carca.s.s into the lake; perhaps the current might carry it away. It did: I had the gratification to see it float off.

"This circ.u.mstance led me into a train of reflections. Why did the body of the alligator float? It was swollen--inflated with gases. Ha!

"An idea shot suddenly through my mind--one of those brilliant ideas, the children of necessity. I thought of the floating alligator, of its intestines--what if I inflated them? Yes, yes! buoys and bladders, floats and life-preservers! that was the thought. I would open the alligators, make a buoy of their intestines, and that would bear me from the islet!

"I did not lose a moment's time; I was full of energy: hope had given me new life. My gun was loaded--a huge crocodile that swam near the sh.o.r.e received the shot in his eye. I dragged him on the beach; with my knife I laid open his entrails. Few they were, but enough for my purpose. A plume-quill from the wing of the ibis served me for a blow-pipe. I saw the bladder-like skin expand, until I was surrounded by objects like great sausages. Those were tied together, and fastened to my body, and then, with a plunge, I entered the waters of the lake, and floated downward. I had tied on my life-preservers in such a way that I sat in the water in an upright position, holding my gun with both hands. This I intended to have, used as a club in case I should be attacked by the alligators; but I had chosen the hot hour of noon, when these creatures lie in a half-torpid state, and to my joy I was not molested.

"Half an hour's drifting with the current carried me to the end of the lake, and I found myself at the _debouchure_ of the bayou. Here, to my great delight, I saw my boat in the swamp, where it had been caught and held fast by the sedge. A few minutes more, and I had swung myself over the gunwale, and was sculling with eager strokes down the smooth waters of the bayou.

"Of course my adventure was ended, and I reached the settlement in safety, but without the object of my excursion. I was enabled, however, to procure it some days after, and had the gratification of being able to keep my promise to my friend."

Besancon's adventure had interested all of us; the old hunter-naturalist seemed delighted with it. No doubt it revived within him the memories of many a perilous incident in his own life.

It was evident that in the circle of the camp-fire there was more than one pair of lips ready to narrate some similar adventure, but the hour was late, and all agreed it would be better to go to rest. On to-morrow night, some other would take their turn; and, in fact, a regular agreement was entered into that each one of the party who had at any period of his life been the hero or partic.i.p.ator in any hunting adventure should narrate the same for the entertainment of the others.

This would bring out a regular "round of stories by the camp-fire," and would enable us to kill the many long evenings we had to pa.s.s before coming up with the buffalo. The conditions were, that the stories should exclusively relate to birds or animals--in fact, any hunted game belonging to the _fauna_ of the American Continent: furthermore, that each should contribute his _quota_ of information about whatever animal should chance to be the subject of the narration--about its habits, its geographical range; in short, its general natural history, as well as the various modes of hunting it, practised in different places by different people. This, it was alleged, would render our camp conversation instructive as well as entertaining.

The idea originated with the old hunter-naturalist, who very wisely reasoned that among so many gentlemen of large hunting experience he might collect new facts for his favourite science--for to just such men, and not to the closet-dreamer, is natural history indebted for its most interesting chapters. Of course every one of us, guides and all, warmly applauded the proposal, for there was no one among us averse to receiving a little knowledge of so entertaining a character. No doubt to the naturalist himself we should be indebted for most part of it; and his mode of communicating was so pleasant, that even the rude trappers listened to him with wonder and attention. They saw that he was no "greenhorn" either in woodcraft or prairie knowledge, and that was a sufficient claim to their consideration.

There is no character less esteemed by the regular "mountain-man" than a "greenhorn,"--that is, one who is new to the ways of their wilderness life.

With the design of an early start, we once more crept into our several quarters, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE Pa.s.sENGER-PIGEONS.

After an early breakfast we lit our pipes and cigars, and took to the road. The sun was very bright, and in less than two hours after starting we were sweltering under a heat almost tropical. It was one of those autumn days peculiar to America, where even a high lat.i.tude seems to be no protection against the sun, and his beams fall upon one with as much fervour as they would under the line itself. The first part of our journey was through open woods of black-jack, whose stunted forms afforded no shade, but only shut off the breeze which might otherwise have fanned us.

While fording a shallow stream, the doctor's scraggy, ill-tempered horse took a fit of kicking quite frantical. For some time it seemed likely that either the doctor himself, or his saddle-bags, would be deposited in the bottom of the creek, but after a severe spell of whipping and kicking on the part of the rider, the animal moved on again. What had set it dancing? That was the question. It had the disposition to be "frisky," but usually appeared to be lacking in strength. The buzz of a horse-fly sounding in our ears explained all. It was one of those large insects--the "horse-bug,"--peculiar to the Mississippi country, and usually found near watercourses. They are more terrible to horses than a fierce dog would be. I have known horses gallop away from them as if pursued by a beast of prey.

There is a belief among western people that these insects are propagated by the horses themselves; that is, that the eggs of the female are deposited upon the gra.s.s, so that the horses may swallow them; that incubation goes on within the stomach of the animal, and that the chrysalis is afterwards voided. I have met with others who believed in a still stranger theory; that the insect itself actually sought, and found, a pa.s.sage into the stomach of the horse, some said by pa.s.sing down his throat, others by boring a hole through his abdomen; and that in such cases the horse usually sickened, and was in danger of dying!

After the doctor's mustang had returned to proper behaviour, these odd theories became the subject of discussion. The Kentuckian believed in them--the Englishman doubted them--the hunter-naturalist could not endorse them--and Besancon ignored them entirely.