the art, as some asses have done,
of making long speeches, yet the epithet of dumb animals is not
altogether appropriate to them.

All our anxieties were now at an end, and we soon terminated this
distressing ride, and reached a spot near a marsh, where three or four
trees were standing. Fortunately for us, there was some dead wood on the
ground, and some wild grass for the horses, which we immediately
proceeded to tether and turn loose, that they might choose their own
bite, for the night was too cold for them to stray far. Whilst the men
were collecting wood and pitching the tent, I endeavored to produce a
light, but my fingers were so benumbed that, after breaking several
matches, I gave up the attempt, and began to run backward and forward,
and strike my hands together, to restore my natural warmth. The sickness
at my stomach from exposure and inanition now increased upon me, and I
felt persuaded that I should have perished if I had been obliged to lie
out on the prairie without a fire. At length, the men having got a fire
up, I gradually recovered from my indisposition, and having eaten part
of a biscuit felt much better. I was sorry, however, to receive bad
accounts from the men about the water, which we so much wanted to make
soup for themselves and for my tea. It appeared that the only water that
was to be obtained was from a hole in the swamp, and that it was as
black as ink. On inspecting it, it was so thick and disgusting that I
thought it impossible to use it, but remembering the saying of an old
French fellow-traveller, "Que tout est bon, quand il n'y a pas de
choix," and knowing that nothing but a cup of tea would thoroughly
revive me, and unwilling to send Miler a mile in the dark to Big Stone
Lake to obtain clear water, I determined to make the best I could of it.

I had a large pot therefore filled, and boiled it, skimming it as the
black scum came in immense quantities to the top, and having exhausted
it of everything of that kind that it would yield, the very notable idea
struck me to put a quantity of it into my kettle with some black tea and
boil it over again, which I did, and really, when I poured it out it
looked so like strong black tea, and was so good and refreshing, that I
soon forgot everything about it except that it had restored me to life
and animation. How many dead newts and other animals that had perished
in the desiccation of the swamp that had attended the late drought went
to form