y cries,--with a large amount of intoxicating liquors.

The scene presented that night was wild and picturesque in the extreme.
The horses of the army were scattered about over the plain grazing upon
the rich herbage. There was wood in abundance near, and the camp-fires
for a thousand men threw up their forked flames, illumining the whole
region with almost the light of day. The white tents of the officers,
the varied groups of the soldiers, running here and there, in all
possible attitudes, the cooking and feasting, often whole quarters of
beef roasting on enormous spits before the vast fires, afforded a
spectacle such as is rarely seen.

One picture instantly arrested the eye of every beholder. There were
one hundred and eighty-six friendly Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians, who
had enlisted in the army. They formed a band by themselves under their
own chiefs. They were all nearly naked, gorgeously painted, and
decorated with the very brilliant attire of the warrior, with
crimson-colored plumes, and moccasins and leggins richly fringed, and
dyed in bright and strongly contrasting hues. These savages were in the
enjoyment of their greatest delight, drinking to frenzy, and performing
their most convulsive dances, around the flaming fires.

In addition to this spectacle which met the eye, there were sounds of
revelry which fell almost appallingly upon the ear. The wide expanse
reverberated with bacchanal songs, and drunken shouts, and frenzied
war-whoops. These were all blended in an inextricable clamor. With the
unrefined eminently, and in a considerable degree with the most
refined, noise is one of the essential elements of festivity. A
thousand men were making all the noise they could in this midnight
revel. Probably never before, since the dawn of creation, had the banks
of the Alabama echoed with such a clamor as in this great carouse,
which had so suddenly burst forth from the silence of the almost
uninhabited wilderness.

This is the poetry of war. This it is which lures so many from the
tameness of ordinary life to the ranks of the army. In such scenes,
Crockett, bursting with fun, the incarnation of wit and good nature,
was in his element. Here he was chief. All did him homage. His pride
was gratified by his distinction. Life in his lonely hut, with wife and
children, seemed, in comparison, too spiritless to be endured.

The Alabama here runs nearly west. The army was on the south side of
the river. The next da