est Joe and his worthy _compeer_ and coadjutor, Sidney Rigdon.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

The day of the fishing at length arrived; our party of ladies and
gentlemen, with the black cooks and twenty slaves, started two hours
before sunrise, and, after a smart ride of some twelve miles, we halted
before a long row of tents, which had been erected for the occasion, on
the shores of one of these numerous and beautiful western lakes. Fifty
negroes were already on the spot, some cutting wood for fuel, some
preparing breakfast, while others made ready the baits and lines, or
cleaned empty barrels, in which our intended victims were to be salted.
We scarcely had had time to look around us, when, from twenty different
quarters, we beheld the approach of as many parties, who had been
invited to share the sport. We greeted them planter fashion;--"Are you
hungry, eh, eh?--Sam, Napoleon, Washington, Caesar--quick--the
breakfast."

For several days previous, all the creeks of the neighbourhood had been
drained of their cray-fish, minnows, and shell-fish. All the dug-outs
and canoes from every stream thirty miles round had also been dragged to
the lake, and it was very amusing to see a fleet of eighty boats and
canoes of every variety, in which we were about to embark to prosecute
our intentions against the unsuspecting inhabitants of the water.

After a hearty, though somewhat hasty meal, we proceeded to business,
every white man taking with him a negro, to bait his line and unhook the
fish; the paddles were soon put in motion, and the canoes, keeping a
distance of fifty yards from each other, having now reached the deepest
part of the lake, bets were made as to who would pull up the first fish,
the ladies on shore watching the sport, and the caldrons upon the fire
ready to receive the first victims. I must not omit to mention, that
two of the larger canoes, manned only by negroes, were ordered to pull
up and down the line of fishing-boats and canoes, to take out the fish
as they were captured.

At a signal given by the ladies, the lines were thrown into the lake,
and, almost at the same moment, a deafening hurrah of a hundred voices
announced that all the baits had been taken before reaching the bottom,
every fisherman imagining that he had won his bet. The winner, however,
could never be ascertained, and nobody gave it a second thought, all
being now too much excited with the sport. The variety of the fish was
equal to th