into his eye.
Basil and François now showed themselves – as they did not care to waste their ammunition by shooting any more – and the rest of the alligators, seeing them, swam off faster than they had come. By the aid of Lucien’s hatchet, the largest teeth were knocked out of the jaws of the one that had been killed; and the horrid carcass was left where it lay, to feed the wolves and vultures, or anything else that chose to make a meal of it.
After cooking a pot of coffee and a venison-steak for supper, our adventurers spread their buffalo-robes within the tent, and went to rest for the night.
Next morning they were astir by daybreak; and after breakfasting heartily, they saddled their horses, and resumed their journey.
Chapter Ten.
The Food of the Silkworm
After leaving Bayou Crocodile, our young hunters travelled due west, over the prairies of Opelousas. They did not expect to fall in with buffalo on these great meadows. No. The bison had long since forsaken the pastures of Opelousas, and gone far westward. In his place thousands of long horned cattle roamed over these plains; but these, although wild enough, belonged to owners, and were all marked and tended by mounted herdsmen. There were white settlements upon the prairies of Opelousas, but our adventurers did not go out of their way to visit them. Their purpose was to get far beyond; and they did not wish to lose time.
They crossed numerous bayous and rivers, generally running southward into the Mexican Gulf. The shallow ones they forded, while those that were too deep for fording, they swam over upon their horses. They thought nothing of that – for their horses, as well as the mule Jeanette and the dog Marengo, were all trained to swim like fishes.
After many days’ travel they reached the banks of the river Sabine, which divides Louisiana from Texas, then a part of the Mexican territory. The face of the country was here very different from most of that they had passed over. It was more hilly and upland; and the vegetation had altogether changed. The great dark cypress had disappeared, and pines were more abundant. The forests were lighter and more open.
There was a freshet in the Sabine; but they swam across it, as they had done other rivers, and halted to encamp upon its western bank. It was still only a little after noon, but as they had wet their baggage in crossing, they resolved to remain by the river for the rest of the day. They made their camp in an open space in the midst of a grove of low trees. There were many open spaces, for the trees stood wide apart, and the grove looked very much like a deserted orchard. Here and there a tall magnolia raised its cone-shaped summit high above the rest, and a huge trunk of one of these, without leaves or branches, appeared at some distance, standing like an old ruined tower.
The ground was covered with flowers of many kinds. There were blue lupins and golden helianthi. There were malvas and purple monardas, and flowers of the cotton-rose, five inches in diameter. There were blossoms of vines, and creeping plants, that twined around the trees, or stretched in festoons from one to another – the cane-vine with its white clusters, and the raccoon grape, whose sweet odours perfumed the air; but by far the most showy were the large blossoms of the bignonia, that covered the festoons with their trumpet-shaped corollas, exhibiting broad surfaces of bright scarlet.
In the midst of these flowers our hunters pitched camp, picketing their animals, and putting up their tent as usual.
The sun was shining brightly, and they proceeded to spread their wet robes and blankets.
“It strikes me,” said Lucien, after they had completed their arrangements for camping, “that we have halted on the site of an old Indian town.”
“Why do you think so?” asked Basil.
“Why, I notice these heaps of rubbish here that are covered with weeds and briars. They are Indian graves, or piles of decayed logs where houses once stood. I can tell from the trees, too. Look around! do you see anything peculiar in these trees?”
“Nothing,” replied Basil and François together. “Nothing, except that they are mostly small and low.”
“Do you not observe anything odd in their species?”
“No,” said Basil. “I think I have seen them all before. There are mulberry-trees, and black walnuts, and Chicasaw plums, and pawpaws, and Osage orange, and shell-bark hickories, and pecans, and honey-locusts. I see no others except vines, and those great magnolias. I have seen all these trees before.”
“Yes,” returned Lucien, “but have you ever observed them all growing together in this way?”
“Ah! that is a different affair: I believe not.”
“Because it is from that fact,” continued Lucien, “that I am led to believe this spot was once the seat of an Indian settlement. These trees, or others that produced them, have been planted here, and by the Indians.”
“But, brother Luce,” interposed François, “I never heard that the Indians of these parts made such settlements as this must have been. These low woods extend down the river for miles. They must have had a large tract under cultivation.”
“I think,” replied Lucien, “the Indians who at present inhabit this region never planted these trees. It is more likely a settlement of the ancient nation of the Natchez.”
“The Natchez! Why, that is the name of a town on the Mississippi, but I did not know there were Indians of that name.”
“Neither are there now; but there once was a very extensive tribe so called who occupied the whole territory of Louisiana. It is said that, like the Mexicans and Peruvians, they had made some progress in civilisation, and knew how to weave cloth and cultivate the soil. They are now an extinct race.”
“How came that about?”
“No one can tell. Some of the old Spanish authors say that they were destroyed by Indians from South America. This story, however, is very absurd – as is, indeed, most of what has been written by these same old Spanish authors, whose books read more like the productions of children than of reasoning men. It is far more likely that the Natchez were conquered by the Creeks and Chicasaws, who came from the south-west of their country; and that the remnant of their tribe became blended with and lost among the conquerors. In my opinion, this is how they have come to be extinct. Why, then, should not this be one of their ancient settlements, and these trees the remains of their orchards, cultivated by them for their fruits and other uses?”
“But we make but little use of such trees,” remarked François.
“What’s that you say?” exclaimed Basil. “You, François, who every year eat such quantities of shell-bark nuts, and pecans, and red mulberries, too! – you who suck persimmons like a ’possum! – no use, eh?”
“Well, that’s true enough,” rejoined François, “but still we do not cultivate these trees for their fruits – we find them in the woods, growing naturally.”
“Because,” interrupted Lucien, “we have the advantage of the Indians. We understand commerce, and get other and better sorts of fruits from all parts of the world. We have cereals, too, such as wheat and rice, and many kinds which they had not; we can therefore do without these trees. With the Indians it was different. It is true they had the Indian corn or maize-plant (Zea maïz), but, like other people, they were fond of variety; and these trees afforded them that. The Indian nations who lived within the tropics had variety enough. In fact, no people without commerce could have been better off in regard to fruit-bearing plants and trees than the Aztecs, and other tribes of the South.
