time delivering a blow, with the flat of his knife, upon the
horny hand of a backwoodsman, who had again attempted to lift his cap
with a view to examine his hair.

It was, as the reader will already have conjectured, our young
Englishman, who, having been guided by the Indian runner into the path
to the Coshattoes, had at last succeeded in making his way over and
through the innumerable swamps, rivers, and forests with which that
district is so superabundantly blessed. The comparative coolness of the
season, and the shallowness of the swamps and rivers, of the former of
which many were entirely dried up and converted into meadows, had
favoured his journey, or else he would scarcely have succeeded in
reaching the banks of the Atchafalaya. For the preceding three weeks he
had lived upon wild-geese and ducks, which he had killed and roasted as
the Indians had taught him. He had now just emerged from the wilderness,
and, however great his wish undoubtedly was to find himself once more in
civilized society, the grim aspect of the Goliath-like backwoodsmen,
their keen eyes and sunburnt visages, and long horn-handled knives, were
so uninviting, that he was almost tempted to wish himself back again.
Nevertheless, he seemed rather amused than disconcerted by the frank,
forward familiarity of the people he had come amongst.

"And d--n it!" exclaimed one of the men after a long pause, during which
Hodges had been the observed of all eyes, "who, in the devil's name, are
you? You are no Redskin?"

"No, that I'm not," replied the young man, laughing; "I am an
Englishman."

He spoke the last words in the short decided tone, and with all the
importance of a baron or count, who, having condescended to arrive in
disguise amongst his dependents, on a sudden thinks proper to lay aside
his incognito. There was in his look and manner, as he glanced over the
crowd, a degree of self-satisfaction, and a curiosity to see the
impression made by the announcement, mingled with the feeling of
superiority which John Bull willingly entertains, and which he at that
time was wont to display towards Brother Jonathan, but which has since
entirely disappeared, and given place to a sort of envious uneasiness--a
certain proof, in spite of the scorn in which it disguises itself, of
his consciousness of the superiority of the detested Brother Jonathan,
aforesaid.

"An Englishman!" repeated twenty voices.

"A Britisher!" vociferated fifty more, and amo