light
dug-out, started alone, with his arms and his blanket, upon his voyage
of discovery. During four months he struggled daily against the rapid
stream, till he at last reached, in spite of rafts and dangerous eddies,
its source at the Rocky Mountains. On his return, a singular and
terrible adventure befel him: he was dragging his canoe over a raft,
exactly opposite to where now stands his plantation, when, happening to
hurt his foot, he lost hold of his canoe. It was on the very edge of the
raft, near a ruffled eddy: the frail bark was swamped in a moment, and
with it Finn lost his rifle, all his arms, and his blanket[27].

[Footnote 27: Rafts are an assemblage of forest trees, which have been
washed down to the river, from the undermining of its banks. At certain
points they become interlaced and stationary, stretching right across
the river, prevailing the passage of even a canoe.]

Now that cotton grown on the Red River has been acknowledged to be the
best in the States, speculators have settled upon both sides of it as
far as two hundred miles above Lost Prairie; but at the time that Finn
made his excursion, the country was a wilderness of horrible morasses,
where the alligators basked unmolested. For months Finn found himself a
prisoner at Lost Prairie, the spot being surrounded with impenetrable
swamps, where the lightest foot would have sunk many fathoms below the
surface. As to crossing the river, it was out of the question, as it was
more than half a mile broad, and Finn was no swimmer: even now, no human
being or animal can cross it at this particular spot, for so powerful
are the eddies, that, unless a pilot is well acquainted with the
passage, a boat will be capsized in the whirlpools. Human life can be
sustained upon very little, for Finn managed to live for months upon a
marshy ground six miles in extent, partially covered with prickly pears,
sour grapes, and mushrooms. Birds he would occasionally kill with
sticks; several times he surprised tortoises coming on shore to deposit
their eggs, and once, when much pressed by hunger, he gave battle to a
huge alligator. Fire he had none; his clothes had long been in rags; his
beard had grown to a great length, and his nails were sharp as the claws
of a wild beast. At last there was a flood in the river, and above the
raft Finn perceived two immense pine trees afloat in the middle of the
stream. Impelled by the force of the current, they cut through the raft,