"Whilst darker days his fainting flames immure These lines are, however, no proof of " exhausted genius," or "faded fires." "Abortive hopes," indeed, must be the lot of all who reach that period of life at which they were written. In early youth the heart of every one is a poet; it creates a scene of imagined happiness and delusive hopes; it clothes the world in the bright colours of its own fancy; it refines what is coarse, it exalts what is mean; it sees nothing but disinterestedness in friendship, it promises eternal fidelity in love. Even on the distresses of its situation it can throw a certain romantic fhade of melancholy that leaves a man sad, but does not make him unhappy. But at a more advanced age, "the fairy visions fade," and he suffers most deeply who has indulged them the most. One distrefs Dr Blacklock was at this time first afflicted with, of which every one will allow the force. He was occasionally subject to deafness, which, though he seldom felt it in any great degree, was sufficient, in his situation, to whom the sense of hearing was almost the only channel of communication with the external world, to cause very lively uneasinefs. Amidst these indispositions of body, however, and disquietudes of mind, the gentleness of his temper never forsook him, and he felt all that resignation and confidence in the supreme Being which his earliest and his latest life equally acknowledged. In summer 1791 he was seized with a feverish disorder, which at first seemed of a slight, and never rose to a very violent kind; but a frame so little robust as his was not able to resist it, and after about a week's illness it carried him off on the 7th day of July 1791. His wife survives him, to feel, amidst the heavy affliction of his lofs, that melancholy consolation which is derived from the remembrance of his virtues. ANECDOTES OF HUNTING, EXTRACTED FROM MR CAMPBELL'S TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA, NOW IN THE PRESS. Continued from vol. xiv. p. 156. Mode of hunting the Buffaloe, &c. in the large plains in the interior parts of North America above Lake Superior. MR PATERSON said, and which I heard from several others, that part of this great continent abounds with plains, farther than the sight will carry : that one in particular will take a man fifteen days constant travelling to crofs; and for length, neither end of it is known that when a man enters this plain he will find the buffaloes almost as numerous as the trees in the forest, feeding on rich grafs near breast high; and if the sight would carry the length, he believes 100,000 of them could be seen at once. The ground is so level, that, like the ocean, the horizon bounds the sight. Every step you travel you meet with heads and carcases of dead buffaloes. When an Indian has a mind to kill ma ny of them, he mounts his horse, with his bow and a case containing several scores of arrows: he throws the reins loose about the horse's neck, who knows by constant practice his rider's intention, and gallops with all his speed through the middle of the herd of buffaloes. The Indian fhoots as he goes along, until he expends his last arrow, then returns to pick up his prey, and from such as he finds dead he cuts out the tongue and the lump on the back, which he carries away with him; the rest of the carcase he leaves to wolves and other ravenous animals. A species of wolves in these parts are milk white, and are larger than those of any other colour, or any dog whatever that he had seen. The only fuel a traveller can have in these plains, and with which they dress their victuals, is buffaloe's dung; and when he is in want of water he endeavours to fall in with a path made by otters going from one small lake to another, by following which he is sure to find it. The ground is so level that you are just upon the brink of the lake before you see that there is any such thing. Mode of hunting otters. An Indian, when he goes in quest of otters in winter, makes for these lakes, which are then covered with ice and snow. He goes about until he finds out every hole they may have about the lake, all of which he fills up excepting one, two, or three, most suitable for his purpose. To these the otters must have recourse for air. When he has done this, he sprinkles a little snow on the water, which dark manner. May 29. ens it; when the otter is just coming, the sportsman finds the water and the snow agitated; and the animal not seeing what is before him, pops up his head throw the snow, on which the Indian strikes him with his tomahawk,-puts down his hand,pulls him out,-throws him aside, and watches the approach of the next, and serves him in the same In this way sometimes a dozen are killed in one pond. The price of an otter skin is, like penny pies, a bottle of rum; no more is looked for, or ever given; though in Canada they are a guinea, and in England two guineas each. The expence of bringing rum, or any sort of merchandize, two or three thousand miles back, besides the risk of it, must be surely be very great; but the profits, now that the Company are firmly established, are in proportion. Mr Paterson, and a very smart young man his brother, lost, during the first three years they were employed in this trade L. 3000, but in the course of two years cleared this and as much more real profit. But unfortunately his brother and the crew of the boat, with its full loading of merchandize, were drowned and lost. on Lake Superior; which induced him to give it up. Singular mode of warfare. When two nations of Indians are at war with each other, the one to the southward burns large tracts of the grafs in these immense plains; and when the buffaloes, which annually emigrate from the south to the north, and return in winter, meet · 137 with this burned land, they proceed no farther, but return. The northern nations, who trust to the buffaloe for food and winter stores, are thus deprived. of the means of subsistence, and often perish with hunger. Mr Patterson unfortunately happened to have resided one winter with a nation in this predicament; so that he and those along with him were reduced to the necessity of eating their own mogazines, (Indian fhoes,) and every fkin they could find, before spring opened, and permitted them to proceed to a country where they could get game or provisions. READING MEMORANDUMS. Ir is best to give way to the first torrents of a grief, which reason would in vain attempt to oppose. I hate those dragons of chastity who never give quarter to susceptible offenders of their own sex. Not all the lustre of noble birth, not all the accumulations of wealth, not all the pomp of titles, not all the splendour of power, can give dignity to a mind that is destitute of inward improvement. With all the blessings of life and comforts of fortune, allow a frowning stoic to observe" that misfortunes may ensue." VOL. XV. |