d besought his aid; in less than half an hour two men returned
with him, all three well armed; but alas! they were too late! the
wife and her two babes lay mangled on their bloody bed. The
gorged reptiles fell an easy prey to their assailants, who, upon
examining the place, found the hut had been constructed close to
the mouth of a large hole, almost a cavern, where the monster had
hatched her hateful brood.

Among other sights of desolation which mark this region,
condemned of nature, the lurid glare of a burning forest was
almost constantly visible after sunset, and when the wind so
willed, the smoke arising from it floated in heavy vapour over
our heads. Not all the novelty of the scene, not all its
vastness, could prevent its heavy horror wearying the spirits.
Perhaps the dinners and suppers I have described may help to
account for this; but certain it is, that when we had wondered
for a week at the ceaseless continuity of forest; had first
admired, and then wearied of the festooned drapery of Spanish
moss; when we had learned to distinguish the different masses of
timber that passed us, or that we passed, as a "snag," a "log" or
a "sawyer;" when we had finally made up our minds that the
gentlemen of the Kentucky and Ohio military establishments, were
not of the same genus as those of the Tuilleries and St. James's,
we began to wish that we could sleep more hours away. As we
advanced to the northward we were no longer cheered by the
beautiful border of palmettos; and even the amusement of
occasionally spying out a sleeping crocodile was over.

Just in this state, when we would have fain believed that every
mile we went, carried us two towards Memphis, a sudden and
violent shock startled us frightfully.

"It is a sawyer!" said one.

"It is a snag!" cried another.

"We are aground!" exclaimed the captain.

"Aground? Good heavens! and how long shall we stay here?"

"The Lord in his providence can only tell, but long enough to
tire my patience, I expect."

And the poor English ladies, how fared they the while?

Two breakfasts, two dinners, and a supper did they eat, with the
Ohio and Kentucky gentlemen, before they moved an inch. Several
steam-boats passed while we were thus enthralled; but some were
not strong enough to attempt drawing us off, and some attempted
it, but were not strong enough to succeed; at length a vast and
mighty "thing of life" approached, threw out grappling irons; and
in three mi