Morgan and Kentucky, caparisoned in
the most incongruous fashion—some with
"Texan trees," others with the Mexican
saddle, and a few with the old citizen
pigskin—were in waiting. We had about six
miles to travel before reaching the log-hut
on the hunting grounds, but we were not
long getting over the distance, for with the
natural exhilaration of British sailors, our
friends of the Petrel crowded all sail, and
it was charming to observe the confidence
of hand with which they worked the
running gear of their horses. At the
outset there was a slight difficulty in
getting the craft to answer to their helms,
but as the ship's doctor was "aboard,"
we cared little for collisions or coming to
grief.

The expedition, although hastily planned,
had been admirably provided for. Several
ladies, members of the families of planters
in the neighbourhood, had undertaken to
make habitable the neglected log-huts, and
as we drew rein in front of the long low
building, we caught a glimpse of fluttering
dresses as the kindly amateur chamber-
maids—their work completed—escaped
from the rear. Entering these rough
buildings of the forester, we found their
crudeness softened down by the cunning
hand of woman.

While we were pottering about the
verandah, helping ourselves to irritating
snacks of dried tongue, as a relish to the
champagne cup which Captain Beauregard's
servant was busily engaged in concocting,
came galloping up the Nimrods of the
neighbourhood, with their guns athwart
the pommel, and strapped to the saddles
dangled bouquets of wild ducks and snipe,
while others of Waltonian tendencies
brought us abundance of fish with the
pearly lustre still upon the scales.

It was too late to think of sport that
day, so we wandered through the tall pine
stems and deep into the surrounding forest.
In what rank luxuriance grew almost every
species of the evergreen, and notably the
rich clumps of live oak. In some parts of
our path these trees interlaced their
overlapping branches, and from the joined roof
of timber hung a mossy parasite, giving to
this open ceiling a graceful tracery of
Gothic character, and seeming as if it were
nature's design for the nave of a mighty
cathedral. Every inch of the path had
some marked feature to attract our attention.
Here flourished those famous cane
brakes, oftentimes the hiding-place of the
runaway negro, and always the home of
the terrapin and alligator. As the breeze
sighed over the wilderness of reeds, their
leaf-tufted tops rustled the melancholy
dirge of the swamp. Towering above the
undergrowth stood noble trees, survivors
of the primeval forest, while around them
lay their fellows, fallen victims, to rot and
decay, and half immersed in the miry
poison of their beds. The leafy monsters that
raised their wide-spreading heads heavenward,
were strangled, bound, and chained
by the parasite vines, which, festooning
about the brawny limbs, flourished on the
life they were slowly but surely destroying;
and not content with this, they threw their
shoots back to earth, and seemed to bind
with additional fetters the victim which,
as the wind blew, appeared as though
writhing to escape from its bonds.

It was wonderfully cheering, on our
return from a long walk, to find the largest
room of the log-house brilliantly illuminated
with blockade-run candles, whilst
down the centre, a deal table, covered with
the whitest damask, stretched itself
hospitably. The delicate odour of the gumbo
soup tortured the hungry crowd with its
promises—a soup concocted from the
young capsules of ocra, and mixed with
tomatos and Indian corn, well spiced and
seasoned and made oleaginous with butter.
There was the savoury smell of fish browning
in its hot bath of oil, the aroma of
turtle fins and turtle steaks, a sacrificial
dish to propitiate the aldermanic gods,
and a mingling of the substantial steams
of the roast hissing before the wood fire,
with just a flavouring puff from the crisping
snipe and duck. As I write, I rise
above myself at the recollection of that
epicurean night, and I contemplate with
scorn the prospect of dining off a plain
leg of mutton.

Increased in our own estimation, and
certainly in bulk from the effects of the
banquet, our sailor friends talked about
letting out reefs, and as most of those
present were military, I may say there was
a uniform unbuttoning and releasing of the
tightness of the waist. The different wines
had been served with a nicety so suitable
to each dish, that had Brillat Savarin
himself been present, he could not but have
been charmed with this hospitable spurt
of the blockaded South. Far into the
night we eat kissing the slender lips of
our claret and hock glasses—songs and
stories beguiling the fleeting time. Now
it was "a southerly wind and a cloudy
sky" delighting the American sportsman,