r as it looked over the garden gate
at him. Goshorn, observing that I attached some value to the horns (a
new idea to him), secured them for himself.

A day or two after, while descending the river, we stopped to see an old
hunter who lived on the bank. He was a very shrewd, quaint old boy,
"good for a novel." He examined Goshorn's spectacles with so much
interest, that I suspect it was really the first time in his life that he
ever fully ascertained the "true inwardness and utilitarianism" of such
objects. He expressed great admiration, and said that if he had them he
could get twice as many deer as he did. I promised to send him a pair. I
begged from him deer-horns, which he gave me very willingly, expressing
wonder that I wanted such rubbish, and at my delight. And seeing that my
companion had a pair, he said scornfully:

"Dave Goshorn, what do _you_ know about such things? What's set _you_ to
gittin' deer's horns? Give 'em to this here young gentleman, who
understands such things that we don't, and who wants 'em fur some good
reason."

I will do Goshorn the justice to say that he gave them to me for a
parting present. My room at his house was quite devoid of all
decoration, but by arranging on the walls crossed canoe-paddles, great
bunches of the picturesque locust-thorn, often nearly a foot in length,
and the deer's horns, I made it look rather more human. But this
arrangement utterly bewildered the natives, especially the maids, who
naively asked me why I hung them old bones and thorns up in my room. As
this thorn is much used by the blacks in Voodoo, I suppose that it was
all explained by being set down to my "conjurin'."

The maid who attended to my room was a very nice, good girl, but one who
could not have been understood in England. I found that she gathered up
and treasured many utterly worthless trifling bits of pen-drawing which I
threw away. She explained that where she came from on Coal River,
anything like a picture was a great curiosity; also that her friends
believed that all the pictures in books, newspapers, &c., were drawn by
hand. I explained to her how they were made. When _I_ left I offered
her two dollars. She hesitated, and then said, "Mr. Leland, there have
been many, many gentlemen here who have offered me money, but I never
took a cent from any man till _now_. And I _will_ take this from you to
buy something that I can remember you by, for you have always treated me
ki