agreed to fight next morning with rifles, in a copse of thirty acres of trees and brushwood, and take every advantage, like the Indians. Accordingly the lawyer, to make sure of his man, went out of the town at night and lay in a copse till morning, with the rifle pointed over a log towards the road, by which he expected his antagonist to come. The day dawned, and the sun rose, still no doctor appeared; the lawyer was beginning to think that his enemy had taken fright and declined the combat, and he was getting up to return to town to proclaim the poltroon, when he heard a stick break behind him, and looking up, he saw the doctor's rifle presented within ten feet of his head. The lawyer forthwith called a parley, and was allowed to go off into the wood to try again; away he went, and looking about he found a hollow tree, in it he ensconsed himself, and remained quiet for some time, when, hearing no noise, he ventured to look out with one eye, when crack' went a rifle from some bushes in front of him, and the bark of the tree was knocked off by a ball, within an inch or two of his head. He saw smoke, but no doctor, and therefore could not return the fire; he accordingly called another parley. The doctor, who had been often out with Indians, now showed himself, and agreed to make up the quarrel. They returned to town and had a horn together, and we had a good laugh at the lawyer." About Reyholdsburgh, on the Tenessee River, 94 HUNTING PARTIES. the appearance of the forests changed from a gloomy shade to woods open and clear of underwood. We could see far into them, and could admire the polished stems and the carpeting of wild flowers. In these woods the young men go on "Still Hunting-parties," not, as in Ireland, to ferret out potheen, but with a dog at their heels and a rifle on their arm. They move noiselessly through the forest, and try to steal upon and surprise the deer. An Indian sometimes crosses their path, treading stealthily, like a cat, ornamented with feathers in his hair, and his skin surcoat edged with painted hair. He makes the sign of peace, holds up the open palm to the white man, and they continue the pursuit of their game. We passed some hunters practising at a mark; one was an aged and weather-beaten man, whose hand shook so violently that he could not take up a cup of water without spilling it, but the moment he handled his rifle he was as steady as a rock, and no doubt could have brought down a grey squirrel from the top of a sycamore, by hitting the bark immediately below it, and stunning it, without drawing blood or injuring its skin. We next passed some miles, of what are called in the West "barrens." These are prairies, or plains, on which is a scanty, or stunted vegetation. I saw one or two white-headed eagles, the national emblem of America, soaring over these. lonely and desert scenes, and the beautiful red bird sang in the bushes by the side of the road. Some maintain that these barrens are owing to the poverty of the soil; others say, that they were occasioned by the Indian practice of burning the forest in a circle, thus to enclose the game, or to cause fresh grass to grow for their cattle, or to entice deer to particular tracts. Then we came to a part of the forest through which a hurricane had swept, ploughing it up, as it were, and prostrating the trees in a lane of a hundred yards in breadth. Those in the centre of the resistless blast were levelled with the earth, and their roots stood up in a circle of earth and fibres. The trees at the edge of the current of air had had their branches twisted off and carried away like straws, and it was evident that the luckless passenger, coming within the influence of such blasts in these woods, must inevitably perish. Sometimes we heard the hammering of woodpeckers, or screams of parroquets, and fancied we saw humming-birds flitting from flower to flower, though there were but few of them at this season of the year. The geranium, hollyhock, althea, and passion-flower, grew wild in the woods. "The groves were God's first temples; in the darkling woods, Amidst the cool and silence, man knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems!" 96 ADULTERER DETECTED. We halted to eat our mid-day repast at a house, the mistress of which had a very sinister expression, and I was told the following story regarding her: Her husband, a small farmer in the woods, had lived happily with his wife until a young fellow came to board in the house, who was on the look-out for a 66 location," or intended to "take up land" in the neighbourhood. The wife and the boarder soon understood each other; and the husband suspecting something wrong, pretended (as has been done a thousand times before on similar occasions) to go on a journey. He returned at night with his rifle, and a couple of dogs, and found that his place was supplied. He accordingly put the clothes of the paramour on the fire, whilst their owner escaped in his shirt by the window. A bullet was sent after him without effect, but the dogs pursued him down the river side. Some more settlers rose and joined in the hue-and-cry, and the luckless wight was forced to take to the water in a cold night, and saved himself by swimming to a house, where he was taken in and concealed till he was able to flee the country. But he escaped much better than some other poachers whom I heard of here. I had a lusty good-natured fellow, who was a sheriff, as my "compagnon du voyage" for a day, and he afforded much amusement by recounting various anecdotes illustrative of life and manners in the back woods. He described, among other merry-makings, a quilting, or a party of women A BACKWOODS SHERIFF. 97 assembled to sew patches into a quilt. At the end of the day's work the bed-cover is suspended from the ceiling; the young men of the neighbourhood join the party; a fiddler seats himself on a flour-barrel, and they dance and drink whisky till a late hour. Then the worthy sheriff went on to state how he was obliged to be his own thief-taker and executioner; the pursuits he had had after horsestealers; their desperate resistance with their knives before they would allow themselves to be taken; the satisfaction he had in flogging with a cow-skin a fellow who weighed two hundred, who had long eluded him, and had often “broken away from him like a quarter-horse;" how he administered the thirty-nine scientifically, sinking the instrument into the skin and jerking it towards him till the culprit roared like a buffalo, with pain; how he paddled negroes, strapped them over a log, and punished them with a board full of gimlet-holes, so that every stroke raised blisters which took a month to heal. All this, and more, he recounted as we walked along before the baggage-waggon, for the roads were still so rocky and uneven that, when I ventured to ride, the jolting reminded me of Gulliver's journey to Brobdignag, when he was so terribly shaken and discomposed in his box, on a horse that went forty feet at every step. These Tenessee roads were far worse than the tracks over the Russian" steppes," or rugged passes of the |