an impenetrable
covert, and from glittering graceful branch to branch hang garlands of
evergreen creepers, on which the mocking-birds are swinging and singing
even now; while I, bethinking me of the pinching cold that is at this hour
tyrannising over your region, look round on this strange scene--on these
green woods, this unfettered river, and sunny sky--and feel very much like
one in another planet from yourself.

The profusion of birds here is one thing that strikes me as curious,
coming from the vicinity of Philadelphia, where even the robin redbreast,
held sacred by the humanity of all other Christian people, is not safe
from the _gunning_ prowess of the unlicensed sportsmen of your free
country. The negroes (of course) are not allowed the use of firearms, and
their very simply constructed traps do not do much havoc among the
feathered hordes that haunt their rice-fields. Their case is rather a hard
one, as partridges, snipes, and the most delicious wild ducks abound here,
and their allowance of rice and Indian meal would not be the worse for
such additions. No day passes that I do not, in the course of my walk, put
up a number of the land birds, and startle from among the gigantic sedges
the long-necked water-fowl by dozens. It arouses the killing propensity in
me most dreadfully, and I really entertain serious thoughts of learning to
use a gun, for the mere pleasure of destroying these pretty birds as they
whirr from their secret coverts close beside my path. How strong an
instinct of animal _humanity_ this is, and how strange if one be more
strange than another. Reflection rebukes it almost instantaneously, and
yet for the life of me I cannot help wishing I had a fowling-piece
whenever I put up a covey of these creatures; though I suppose, if one
were brought bleeding and maimed to me, I should begin to cry, and be very
pathetic, after the fashion of Jacques. However, one must live, you know;
and here our living consists very mainly of wild ducks, wild geese, wild
turkeys, and venison. Nor, perhaps, can one imagine the universal doom
overtaking a creature with less misery than in the case of the bird who,
in the very moment of his triumphant soaring, is brought dead to the
ground. I should like to bargain for such a finis myself, amazingly, I
know; and have always thought that the death I should prefer would be to
break my neck off the back of my horse at a full gallop on a fine day. Of
course a bad shot should