Forest Life and Forest Trees. By John S. Springer. New York: Harper. London: Sampson Low. 1851.

The northern and elder States of the great American Union have ceased to be associated in our minds with those ideas of wild and romantic adventure which are inseparably connected with some of their younger brethren far west and south. There is nothing suggestive of romance in such names as New York, Maine, and Pennsylvania: cotton bales, keen traders and repudiated debts, drab coats, wooden clocks, and counterfeit nutmegs, compose the equivocal and unpoetical visions they conjure up to European imaginations. But drop we our eyes down the map to lawless Arkansas, feverish Louisiana, and debateable Texas, or westwards to the still newer State of California, and a host of stirring and picturesque associations throng upon our memory. Strange scenes and a motley array pass before us. Bands of hunters and trappers, scarce more civilised than the Indians with whom they war, or gentler than the buffalo which yields them sport and food; predatory armies, for Mexico bound, keen for spoil and regardless of right; caravans of adventurous gold-seekers braving the perilous passage of the Rocky Mountains; hardy squatters, axe in hand, hewing themselves a home in the heart of the wilderness; innumerable traits of courage and endurance—incredible sufferings and countless crimes—make up a picture-gallery unrivalled of its kind. In those districts, not a league of prairie, not a mountain or stream, not a bayou or barranca, but has derived recent and vivid interest from the animated sketches of Sealsfield, Ruxton, Wise, and a host of other graphic and vigorous delineators.

As if to vindicate the claims to interest of the northern American provinces, a Down-easter, Springer by name, who hails from the State of Maine, has exhibited, in a curious little volume, the adventurous side of life in his part of the Union. At a first glance, there would appear to be few created things whose history was likely to be less interesting than that of a Yankee pine-log. Get astride it with Springer, and paddle up the Penobscot, clearing rapids and other impediments as best you may on so unpromising a float—and, before reaching the place where it grew, you shall marvel at the skill and daring expended, and at the risks run to procure it. Springer, who was reared amongst the pine forests, which his axe afterwards helped to thin, is an enthusiastic woodsman, and feels "kinder jealous" that whilst the habits and adventures of many classes of his countrymen have occupied skilful writers and public attention, no chronicler should have been found for the deeds and perils of that numerous class to which he for some years belonged. To supply this deficiency, he himself, although more used to handle axe than goose-quill, has written a plain and unpretending account of scenes and incidents which he shared in and witnessed. The freshness of the subject, and the honest earnestness of the man, would atone for clumsier treatment than it has met with at his hands.

The second title of Mr Springer's book gives a clearer idea of its contents than the primary one. The volume comprises, says the title-page, "Winter camp-life, among the Loggers, and wild-wood adventure, with descriptions of lumbering operations on the various rivers of Maine and New Brunswick." It is divided into three parts; the first and shortest being a dissertation on forest trees, with particular reference to those of America; the second, entitled "The Pine Tree, or Forest Life," giving an account of wood-cutting operations; the third, "River Life," detailing the progress of the timber from the forest to the "boom," or depÔt. The chief interest of the book begins with the second chapter of the second part, wherein is described the commencement of the labours of a gang of "loggers," or woodcutters. In the hunt after timber, as after certain animals, the first thing to be done is to mark the whereabout of your game preparatory to starting in its pursuit. On the eve of the chase the keeper reconnoitres the retreat of the wild-boar. Before a party of loggers proceed to establish a camp and pass the winter woodcutting, they send out scouts to ascertain where timber is plenty. Thirty years since, this was scarcely necessary—the pine, that forest king of the northern States, abounded on every side. Fifty years hence—so it is estimated by those best qualified to judge—the vast pine forests, through which the Penobscot flows, will be on the eve of extinction. Now is the intermediate stage. A man cannot, as he formerly could, step from his house to his day's work; but research and labour still command a rich timber harvest. Exploring expeditions may be made at any period of the year, but autumn is the favourite season. They consist generally of only two or three men, accustomed to the business, who, provided with the necessary provisions, with a coffee-pot and a blanket, axe, rifle, and ammunition, embark on skiff or bateau, and pole and paddle their way two hundred miles or more up the Penobscot or the St Croix, and their numerous tributaries. On reaching the district it is proposed to explore, the boat is hauled ashore and turned bottom upwards, the load of stores is divided amongst the party, and they strike into the forest, rousing, on their passage, the stately moose, the timid deer, the roaming black bear, and many an inferior denizen of the lonesome wilderness. They now begin "prospecting." Often the thickness of the forest and the uneven surface of the country prevent their obtaining a sufficiently extensive view, and compel them to climb trees in order to look around them.

"When an ascent is to be made, the spruce tree is generally selected, principally for the superior facilities which its numerous limbs afford the climber. To gain the first limbs of this tree, which are from twenty to forty feet from the ground, a smaller tree is undercut and lodged against it, clambering up which the top of the spruce is reached. Sometimes, when a very elevated position is desired, the spruce tree is lodged against the trunk of some lofty pine, up which we ascend to a height twice that of the surrounding forest. From such a tree-top, like a mariner at the mast-head upon the look-out for whales, (and indeed the pine is the whale of the forest,) large 'clumps' and 'veins' of pine are discovered, whose towering tops may be seen for miles around. Such views fill the bosom of timber-hunters with an intense interest. They are the object of his search—his treasure, his Eldorado; and they are beheld with peculiar and thrilling emotions. To detail the process more minutely, we should observe, that the man in the tree-top points out the direction in which the pines are seen; or, if hid from the view of those below by the surrounding foliage, he breaks a small limb, and throws it in the direction in which they appear, whilst a man at the base marks the direction indicated by the falling limb by means of a compass which he holds in his hand, the compass being quite as necessary in the wilderness as on the pathless ocean. In fair weather the sun serves as an important guide; and in cloudy weather the close observation of an experienced woodman will enable him to steer a tolerably correct course by the moss which grows on the trunks of most hardwood trees, the north sides of which are covered with a much larger share than the other portions of the trunk. This Indian compass, however, is not very convenient or safe, particularly in passing through swampy lands, which are of frequent occurrence."

Two reflections are suggested by the paragraph we have just copied. The substance of one of them is noted in the Preface. "This volume," says the modest and sensible Springer, "makes no pretensions to literary merit; sooner would it claim kindred with the wild and uncultivated scenes of which it is but a simple relation." The second reflection is, that our wood-cutter is an enthusiast in his craft; for wood-cutting in Maine is a craft, and no common log-chopping. To Springer, a towering grove of timber is as exciting a sight as is to the hunter that of a herd of antlered deer or shaggy buffalo. The pine especially is the object of his love and admiration. He abounds in anecdotes and arguments to prove its good qualities, and labours hard to establish its superiority to the oak. Reared amongst the noble pines of Maine, he says, even as a child, he could never hear, without feelings of jealousy, the oak extolled as monarch of the forest. Admitting it to excel in strength, he vaunts, upon the other hand, the superior grandeur and girth of the pine, its value in building, the breadth of its planks, their clearness, beauty, and freedom from knots, the numerous uses to which it is applicable, its excellence as fuel, its perfect adaptation to all the joiner's purposes. He extols in turn each of its varieties; the red pine, remarkable for its tall trunk, which sometimes rises eighty feet from the ground before putting out a limb; the pitch pine, inferior in size, but preferable to any other wood for generating steam in engines; the white pine, superior to all in value and dimensions. He tells us of pines, of which he has read or heard, of extraordinary grandeur and diameter: of one, two hundred and sixty-four feet long; and of another which, at three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine inches in circumference. These extraordinary specimens were cut some years ago. Trees of such dimensions are now rare.

"I have worked in the forests among this timber several years," says Springer, "have cut many hundreds of trees, and seen many thousands, but I never found one larger than one I felled on a little stream which empties into Jackson Lake, near the head of Baskahegan stream, in eastern Maine. This was a pumpkin pine, (a variety of the white pine.) Its trunk was as straight and handsomely grown as a moulded candle, and measured six feet in diameter four feet from the ground, without the aid of spur roots. It was about nine rods in length, or one hundred and forty-four feet, about sixty-five feet of which was free of limbs, and retained its diameter remarkably well. I was employed about one hour and a quarter in felling it. The afternoon was beautiful; everything was calm, and to me the circumstances were deeply interesting. After chopping an hour or so, the mighty giant, the growth of centuries, which had withstood the hurricane, and raised itself in peerless majesty above all around, began to tremble under the strokes of a mere insect, as I might appear in comparison with it. My heart palpitated as I occasionally raised my eye to its pinnacle to catch the first indications of its fall. It came down at length with a crash, which seemed to shake a hundred acres, whilst the loud echo rang through the forest, dying away amongst the distant hills. It had a hollow in the butt about the size of a barrel, and the surface of the stump was sufficiently spacious to allow a yoke of oxen to stand upon it. It made five logs, and loaded a six-ox team three times. The butt-log was so large, that the stream did not float it in the spring; and when the drive was taken down, we were obliged to leave it behind, much to our regret and loss. At the boom, that log would have been worth fifty dollars."

The pine tracts ascertained, the quality of the trees examined, the distance the timber will have to be hauled duly calculated, and the ground inspected, through which logging roads must be cut, the exploring party retrace their steps to the place where they left their boat. Foot-sore with their forest roamings, they gladly look forward to the quick, gliding passage down stream. A grievous disappointment sometimes awaits them. In the fall of the year, the black bear is seized with a violent longing for pitch and resinous substances, and frequently strips fir trees of their bark for the sake of the exudations. Occasionally he stumbles over a timber-hunter's bateau, and tears it to pieces in the course of the rough process he employs to extract the tar from its planks. If it is injured beyond possibility of repair, the unlucky pioneers have to perform their homeward journey on foot, unless indeed they are so fortunate as to fall in with some Indian trapper, whose canoe they can charter for a portion of the way. Once at home, the next step is to obtain permits from the State or proprietors, securing, at a stipulated price of so much per thousand feet, the exclusive right to cut timber within certain bounds. Then comes haymaking—a most important part of the loggers' duty; for on nothing does the success of the wood-cutting campaign depend more than on the good working condition of the sturdy teams of oxen which drag the logs from the snow-covered forest to the river's brink. Hard by the forest extensive strips of meadow-land are commonly found, covered with a heavy growth of grass, and thither large bands of men repair to make and stalk the hay for the ensuing winter's consumption. The labour of haymaking in these upland meadows of Maine is rendered intolerably painful by the assaults of flies and mosquitoes, and especially by the insidious attacks of millions of midges, so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and which get between the clothes and the skin, causing a smarting and irritation so great as to impede the progress of the work. The torment of these insect attacks is hardly compensated by the pastimes and adventures incidental to the occupation. Now and then a shot is to be had at a stray deer; the streams swarm with beautiful trout and pickerel; skirmishes with black bears are of frequent occurrence. Mr Springer's volume abounds with stories of encounters with bears, wolves, and "Indian devils"—a formidable species of catamount, of which the Indians stand in particular dread. Although the bear rarely shows himself pugnacious unless assailed, his meddlesome, thievish propensities render him particularly obnoxious to the hay-makers and wood-cutters; and when they meet him, they never can abstain from the aggressive, however civilly Bruin may be disposed to pass them by.

"On one occasion," says Mr Springer, "two men, crossing a small lake in skiff, on their return from putting up hay, discovered a bear swimming from a point of land for the opposite shore. As usual in such cases, temptation silenced prudence—they changed their course, and gave chase. The craft being light, they gained fast upon the bear, who exerted himself to the utmost to gain the shore; but, finding himself an unequal match in the race, he turned upon his pursuers, and swam to meet them. One of the men, a short, thick-set, dare-devil fellow, seized an axe, and, the moment the bear came up, inflicted a blow upon his head. It seemed to make but a slight impression, and before it could be repeated the bear clambered into the boat. He instantly grappled the man who struck him, firmly setting his teeth in his thigh; then, settling back upon his haunches, he raised his victim in the air, and shook him as a dog would a wood-chuck. The man at the helm stood for a moment in amazement, without knowing how to act, and fearing that the bear might spring overboard and drown his companion; but, recollecting the effect of a blow upon the end of a bear's snout, he struck him with a short setting-pole. The bear dropped his victim into the bottom of the boat, sallied and fell overboard, and swam again for the shore. The man bled freely from the bite, and, as the wound proved too serious to allow a renewal of the encounter, they made for the shore. But one thing saved them from being upset: the water proved sufficiently shoal to admit of the bear's getting bottom, from which he sprang into the boat. Had the water been deep, the consequences might have been more serious."

From its first to its last stage, the logger's occupation is one of severe toil and frequent peril. When the pioneer's duty is accomplished, and when the hay is made, there is still hard work to be done before he can begin to level the forest giants. No kind of labour, Mr Springer assures us, tests a man's physical abilities and powers of endurance more than boating supplies up river. The wood-cutters come to a fall, and have to land their implements and provisions, and to carry them past it. Their boats, too, must be carried, and that over rocks and fallen trees, through thickets and pathless swamps. Then they come to rapids, up which they have to pole their heavy-laden bateaux. For this work, prodigious skill, nerve, and strength are requisite. Then come the long portages from lake to lake, and the danger of being swamped, when traversing these, by sudden gusts of wind lashing the lake, in a few minutes' time, into foaming waves, in which the deeply-loaded boats could not for a moment live.

"Our frail skiff was about eighteen feet long, and four feet across the top of the gunwale amidships, tapering to a point at either end, constructed of thin slips of pine boards, nailed to some half-dozen pair of slender knees, about two inches in diameter. On board were fifteen hundred pounds of provisions, with seven men, which pressed her into the water nearly to the gunwale; three inches from the position of a level, and she would fill with water."

In such an overburthened cockle-shell as this did Mr Springer once find himself in company with a drunken man, who was only withheld from capsizing the boat by the threat of having his skull split with a paddle; for an inordinate addiction to rum is the loggers' chief vice, a vice palliated by the hardship and exposure they endure. Drinking, however, is on the decline amongst them of late years, since "it has been fully demonstrated that men can endure the chilling hardships of river-driving quite as well, and indeed far better, without the stimulus of ardent spirits, and perform more and better-directed labour." Black pepper tea is drunk on cold nights when camping in the open air, and is found a warming and comfortable beverage. Both in drink and diet the loggers look more to strength than to delicacy. Salt pork, ship bread, and molasses, compose the staple of their consumption. The drippings from a slice of pork, roasted before the fire, are allowed to fall on the bread, which is then dignified by the name of buttered toast. Sometimes the salt pork is eaten raw, dipped in molasses,—a mixture unequalled for nastiness, we should imagine, excepting by that of oysters and brown sugar. "The recital may cause," says honest Springer in his comical English, "in delicate and pampered stomachs some qualms, yet we can assure the uninitiated that, from these gross samples, the hungry woodsman makes many a delicious meal." An assurance which gives us a most exalted idea of the appetite and digestion of the loggers of Maine.

Once in the forest with their stores, the woodmen carefully select a suitable spot, clear the ground, build their "camp" and "hovel," and commence their winter's work. The "camp" and "hovel" are two log-houses, the former being for the men, the latter for the oxen. In some respects the beasts are better treated than their masters, for their hovel is floored with small poles, a luxury unknown in the camp, where the men sleep on branches strewn upon the bare earth. "Having completed our winter residences, next in order comes the business of looking out and cutting the 'main' and some of the principal 'branch roads.' These roads, like the veins in the human body, ramify the wilderness to all the principal 'clumps' and 'groves' of pine embraced in the permit." Mr Springer expatiates on the graceful curves of the roads, whose inequalities soon become filled with snow, and their surface hard-beaten and glassy, polished by the sled and logs which are continually passing over it, whilst overhead the trees interlace their spreading branches. "Along this roadside, on the way to the landing, runs a serpentine path for the 'knight of the goad,' whose deviations are marked now outside this tree, then behind that 'windfall,' now again intercepting the main road, skipping along like a dog at one's side." The teamster, if he does his duty, works harder than any man in camp. Under a good teamster, the oxen receive care almost as tender as though they were race-horses with thousands depending on their health and condition. With proper attention and management, they should be in as good flesh in the spring as when they began hauling early in winter.

"The last thing at night before 'turning in,' the teamster lights his lantern and repairs to the ox-hovel. In the morning, by peep of day, and often before, his visits are repeated, to hay and provender, and card, and yoke up. While the rest of the hands are sitting or lounging around the liberal fire, shifting for their comfort, after exposure to the winter frosts through the day, he must repeatedly go out to look after the comfort of the sturdy, faithful ox. And then, for an hour or two in the morning again, whilst all, save the cook, are closing up the sweet and unbroken slumbers of the night, so welcome and necessary to the labourer, he is out amid the early frost with, I had almost said, the care of a mother, to see if 'old Turk' is not loose, whether 'Bright' favours the near fore-foot, (which felt a little hot the day before,) as he stands up on the hard floor, and then to inspect 'Swan's' provender-trough, to see if he has eaten his meal, for it was carefully noted that at the 'watering-place' last night he drank but little; whilst at the further end of the 'tie-up' he thinks he hears a little clattering noise, and presently 'little Star' is having his shins gently rapped, as a token of his master's wish to raise his foot to see if some nail has not given way in the loosened shoe; and this not for once, but every day, with numberless other cares connected with his charge."

The oxen are taken out to the forest by the last detachment of wood-cutters, when winter fairly sets in. This is the hardest trip of any. Both man and beast experience much inconvenience from the cold. Often, when driving a boat up rapids, ice forms upon the poles in the men's hands, which are already so cold and stiff that they can scarcely retain their grasp; yet an instant's cessation of exertion would be fraught with imminent peril to life and goods. The oxen, attached to long lightly-loaded sleds, are driven over rough miry tracks. "In crossing large streams, we unyoke the oxen and swim them over. If we have no boat, a raft is constructed, upon which our effects are transported, when we reyoke and pursue our route as before. Our cattle are often very reluctant to enter the water whilst the anchor-ice runs, and the cold has already begun to congeal its surface." Lakes are crossed upon the ice, which not unfrequently breaks in. Mr Springer gives an account of a journey he made, when this misfortune happened, and ten oxen at one time were struggling in the chilling waters of Baskahegan Lake. They were all got out, he tells us, although rescue under such circumstances would appear almost hopeless.

"Standing upon the edge of the ice, a man was placed by the side of each ox to keep his head out of the water. We unyoked one at a time, and throwing a rope round the roots of his horns, the warp was carried forward and attached to the little oxen, (a pair that had not broken in,) whose services on this occasion were very necessary. A strong man was placed on the ice at the edge, so that, lifting the ox by his horns, he was able to press the ice down and raise his shoulder up on the edge, when the warp-oxen would pull them out. For half-an-hour we had a lively time of it, and in an almost incredibly short time we had them all safely out, and drove them back upon the point nearly a mile. It was now very dark. We left our sleds in the water with the hay, pulling out a few armsful, which we carried to the shore to rub the oxen down with. Poor fellows! they seemed nearly chilled to death, and shook as if they would fall to pieces."

So great is the labour of taking oxen to the forest every Fall—often to a distance of two hundred miles into the interior—that the wood-cutters sometimes leave them, when they go down stream in the spring to get their own living in the wilderness, and hunt them up again in autumn. They thrive finely in the interval, and get very wild and difficult to catch; but when at last subjugated, they evidently recognise their masters, and are pleased to see them. Occasionally they disappear in the course of the summer, and are heard of no more; they are then supposed to have got "mired or cast," or to have been devoured by wolves—or by bears, which also are known to attack oxen.

"An individual who owned a very fine 'six-ox team' turned them into the woods to brouse, in a new region of country. Late in the evening, his attention was arrested by the bellowing of one of them. It continued for an hour or two, then ceased altogether. The night was very dark, and as the ox was supposed to be more than a mile distant, it was thought not advisable to venture in search of him until morning. As soon as daylight appeared, the owner started, in company with another man, to investigate the cause of the uproar. Passing on about a mile, he found one of his best oxen prostrate, and, on examination, there was found a hole eaten into the thickest part of his hind quarter nearly as large as a hat; not less than six or eight pounds of flesh were gone. He had bled profusely. The ground was torn up for rods around where the encounter occurred; the tracks indicated the assailant to be a very large bear, who had probably worried the ox out, and then satiated his ravenous appetite, feasting upon him while yet alive. A road was bushed out to the spot where the poor creature lay, and he was got upon a sled and hauled home by a yoke of his companions, where the wound was dressed. It never, however, entirely healed, though it was so far improved as to allow of its being fattened, after which he was slaughtered for food."

In cold weather in those forests the bears and wolves are exceedingly audacious. The latter have a curious habit of accompanying the teams on their journeys between the forest and the river to which they drag the logs. This has only occurred of late years, and the manner in which they thus volunteer their services as assistant drivers is exceedingly curious.

"Three teams," says Springer, "in the winter of 1844, all in the same neighbourhood, were beset with these ravenous animals. They were of unusually large size, manifesting a most singular boldness, and even familiarity, without the usual appearance of ferocity so characteristic of the animal. Sometimes one, and in another instance three, in a most unwelcome manner, volunteered their attendance, accompanying the teamster a long distance on his way. They would even jump on the log and ride, and approach very near the oxen. One of them actually jumped upon the sled, and down between the bars, while the sled was in motion. Some of the teamsters were much alarmed, keeping close to the oxen, and driving on as fast as possible. Others, more courageous, would run forward and strike at them with their goad-sticks; but the wolves sprang out of the way in an instant. But, although they seemed to act without a motive, there was something so cool and impudent in their conduct that it was trying to the nerves—even more so than an active encounter. For some time after this, firearms were a constant part of the teamster's equipage."

The distant howling and screaming of the wolves, compared by an old Yankee hunter to the screeching of forty pair of old cart-wheels, is particularly ominous and disagreeable. Springer has collected a number of curious anecdotes concerning them. One night a pack of the prowling marauders were seen trailing down Mattawamkeag River on the ice. The dwellers in a log-house hard by soaked some meat in poison and threw it out. Next morning the meat was gone, and six wolves lay dead, all within sight of each other. "Every one of them had dug a hole down through the snow into the frozen earth, in which they had thrust their noses, either for water to quench the burning thirst produced by the poison, or to snuff some antidote to the fatal drug. A bounty was obtained on each of ten dollars, besides their hides, making a fair job of it, as well as ridding the neighbourhood of an annoying enemy." Several of Mr Springer's logging and lumbering friends have contributed to his book the results of their experience, and narratives of their adventures, some of which he gives in their own words. Amongst these is an ill-written, but yet a very exciting, account of a wolf-chase, or we should perhaps rather say a man-chase, the wolves in this instance being the pursuers, and Springer's neighbour the pursued. The person in question was passionately fond of skating, and one night he left a friend's house to skate a short distance up the frozen Kennebeck, which flowed before the door. It was a bright still evening; the new moon silvered the frosty pines. After gliding a couple of miles up the river, the skater turned off into a little tributary stream, over which fir and hemlock twined their evergreen branches. The archway beneath was dark, but he fearlessly entered it, unsuspicious of peril, with a joyous laugh and hurra—an involuntary expression of exhilaration, elicited by the bracing crispness of the atmosphere, and glow of pleasant exercise. What followed is worth extracting.

"All of a sudden a sound arose, it seemed from the very ice beneath my feet. It was loud and tremendous at first, until it ended in one long yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal—so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, that it seemed a fiend from hell had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on the shore snap as if from the tread of some animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn. My energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of defence. The moon shone through the opening by which I had entered the forest, and, considering this the best means of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. It was hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely outstrip my desperate flight; yet as I turned my eyes to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double mine. By their great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that they were the much dreaded grey wolf."

Here Springer interposes a vignette of a wolf—a most formidable and unwholesome-looking quadruped—grinning over the well-picked bone of some unlucky victim. The logger's pages are enlivened by a number of illustrations—woodcuts of course—rough enough in execution, but giving an excellent notion of the scenery, animals, and logging operations spoken of in the text. Grey wolves are of untameable fierceness, great strength and speed, and pursue their prey to the death with frightful tenacity, unwearyingly following the trail—

A more dangerous foe a benighted traveller could hardly fall in with.

"The bushes that skirted the shore," continues the hunted of wolves, "flew past with the velocity of light as I dashed on in my flight. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I should be comparatively safe; when my pursuers appeared on the bank, directly above me, which rose to the height of some ten feet. There was no time for thought; I bent my head, and dashed wildly forward. The wolves sprang, but, miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, whilst their intended prey glided out into the river.

"Nature turned me towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was now some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me that I was again the fugitive. I did not look back; I did not feel sorry or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they should never see me again, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for my escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days I spent on my skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my pursuers made me but too certain they were close at my heels. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I fancied I could hear their deep breathing. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension. The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, when an involuntary motion turned me out of my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop and as unable to turn, slipped, fell, still going on far ahead, their tongues lolling out, their white tusks gleaming from their bloody mouths, their dark shaggy breasts freckled with foam; and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with rage and fury. The thought flashed on my mind that by this means I could avoid them—viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except in a right line.

"I immediately acted on this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed past them. A fierce howl greeted my evolution, and the wolves slipped upon their haunches, and sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the wolves getting more excited and baffled, until, coming opposite the house, a couple of staghounds, aroused by the noise, bayed furiously from their kennels. The wolves, taking the hint, stopped in their mad career, and, after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them till their dusky forms disappeared over a neighbouring hill; then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house."

From some unassigned reason, wolves have increased of late years in the wild forests of north-eastern Maine. Up to 1840, Mr Springer, who had been much in that district, logging in winter and clearing land in summer, never saw one. Since then they have frequently been seen in numerous parties, and of most formidable size. There would not seem to be much to choose, as far as the pleasure of the thing goes, between an encounter with one of these ravenous brutes and a tussle with a catamount. Springer, however, who must be competent to judge, considers the catamount the worse customer. He tells an ugly story, which may serve as a pendant to that of the bear's breakfast on live beef, of what happened to a logger named Smith, when on his way to join a timbering party in the woods. He had nearly reached camp, when he fell in with a catamount, or "Indian devil." Retreat was impossible; for reflection there was no time: arms he had none. Acting from impulse, he sprang up a small tree—perhaps as sensible a thing as he could have done. He had scarcely ascended his length, when the creature, fierce from hunger, made a bound and caught him by the heel. Although badly bitten, Smith managed to get his foot out of the shoe, in which the tiger-cat's teeth were firmly set, and shoe and savage fell together to the ground. What then ensued is so horrible and extraordinary that we should suspect our wood-cutting friend of imaginative decoration, but for the assurance he gives us in his preface, that "the incidents he has related are real, and that in no case is the truth sacrificed to fancy or embellishment." He shall finish his yarn himself.

"The moment he was disengaged, Smith sprang for a more secure position, and the animal at the same time leaped to another large tree, about ten feet distant, up which he ascended to an elevation equal to that of his victim, from which he threw himself upon him, firmly fixing his teeth in the calf of his leg. Hanging suspended thus until the flesh, insufficient to sustain the weight, gave way, he dropped again to the ground, carrying a portion of flesh in his mouth. Having greedily devoured this morsel, he bounded again up the opposite tree, and from thence upon Smith, in this manner renewing his attacks, and tearing away the flesh in mouthfuls from his legs. During this agonising operation, Smith contrived to cut a limb from the tree, to which he managed to bind his jack-knife, with which he could now assail his enemy at every leap. He succeeded thus in wounding him so badly that at length his attacks were discontinued, and he disappeared in the dense forest."

Smith, who, as Springer coolly informs us, "had exerted his voice to the utmost," whilst the catamount was devouring him in detail, (we can perfectly imagine a man bellowing like twenty bulls under such circumstances,) was found by his friends in a state of dreadful exhaustion and suffering, and was carried to camp on a litter. He ultimately recovered, but had sustained irreparable injuries. "Such desperate encounters are of rare occurrence," Springer quietly adds. We should think they were. Really these loggers are cool hands. Encounters with black bears are much more common, we are informed. These are strong fellows, clever at parrying blows, and at wrenching the weapon from their assailant's hand—very tenacious of life, and confirmed robbers. Springer and his comrades were once, whilst ascending a river, followed by one of them for several days. He was bent upon plunder, and one night he walked off with a bundle containing clothing, boots, shaving implements, and other things, for which it might be thought a bear could have little occasion. He examined his prize in the neighbourhood of the camp, tore the clothes to shreds, and chewed up the cow-hide boots and the handle of a razor. From the roof of a log-house, which the woodmen erected a few miles farther on, he carried off a ten-gallon keg of molasses, set it on one end, knocked the head in or out, and was about to enjoy the feast, when he was discovered, pursued, and at last killed. At page 140 we find a capital account of a fight between a family of bears (father, mother, and cubs) and two foresters; and at page 100 the stirring-up of a bear's den is graphically described.

The pine tree is subject to disease of more than one kind, the most frequent being a sort of cancer, known amongst lumber-men as "Conk" or "Konkus," whose sole external manifestation is a small brown spot, usually at several feet from the ground, and sometimes no larger than a shilling. The trees thus afflicted are noway inferior to the soundest in size and apparent beauty; but on cutting into them the rot is at once evident, the wood being reddish in colour, and of spungy texture. "Sometimes it shoots upwards, in imitation of the streaming light of the aurora borealis; in others downwards, and even both ways, preserving the same appearance." Unscrupulous loggers cheat the unwary by driving a knot or piece of a limb of the same tree into the plague-spot, and hewing it off smoothly, so as to give it the appearance of a natural knot. A great many pines are hollow at the base or butt, and these hollows are the favourite winter-retreats of Bruin the bear.

"A few rods from the main logging road where I worked one winter," said Mr Johnston, (a logger whom Springer more than once quotes,) "there stood a very large pine tree. We had nearly completed our winter's work, and it still stood unmolested, because, from appearances, it was supposed to be worthless. Whilst passing it one day, not quite satisfied with the decision that had been made upon its quality, I resolved to satisfy my own mind touching its value; so, wallowing to it through the snow, which was nearly up to my middle, I struck it several blows with the head of my axe, an experiment to test whether a tree be hollow or not. When I desisted, my attention was arrested by a slight scratching and whining. Suspecting the cause, I thumped the tree again, listening more attentively, and heard the same noise as before. It was a bear's den. Examining the tree more closely, I discovered a small hole in the trunk, near the roots, with a rim of ice on the edge of the orifice, made by the freezing of the breath and vapour from the inmates."

The logging crew were summoned, and came scampering down, eager for the fun. The snow was kicked away from the root of the tree, exposing the entrance to the den; and a small hole was cut in the opposite side, through which the family of bears were literally "stirred up with a long pole;" and when the great she-bear, annoyed at this treatment, put her head out at the door, she was cut over the pate with an axe.

"The cubs, four in number—a thing unusual by one-half—we took alive, and carried to camp, kept them a while, and finally sold them. They were quite small and harmless, of a most beautiful lustrous black, and fat as porpoises. The old dam was uncommonly large—we judged she might weigh about three hundred pounds. Her hide, when stretched out and nailed on to the end of the camp, appeared quite equal to a cow's hide in dimensions."

The attacks of wild animals are far from being the sole dangers to which the wood-cutters of Maine are exposed in following their toilsome occupation. Scarcely any phase of their adventurous existence is exempt from risk. Bad wounds are sometimes accidentally received from the axe whilst felling trees. To heal these, in the absence of surgeons, the loggers are thrown upon their own very insufficient resources. Life is also constantly endangered in felling the pine, which comes plunging down, breaking, splitting, and crushing all before it. The broken limbs which are torn from the fallen tree, and the branches it wrenches from other trees,

"rendered brittle by the intense frosts, fly in every direction, like the scattered fragments of an exploding ship. Often these wrenched limbs are suspended directly over the place where our work requires our presence, and on the slightest motion, or from a sudden gust of wind, they slip down with the stealthiness of a hawk and the velocity of an arrow. I recollect one in particular, which was wrenched from a large pine I had just felled. It lodged in the top of a towering birch, directly over where it was necessary for me to stand whilst severing the top from the trunk. Viewing its position with some anxiety, I ventured to stand and work under it, forgetting my danger in the excitement. Whilst thus engaged, the limb slipped from its position, and, falling directly before me, end foremost, penetrated the frozen earth. It was about four inches through, and ten feet long. It just grazed my cap; a little variation, and it would have dashed my head to pieces. Attracted on one occasion, whilst swamping a road, by the appearance of a large limb which stuck fast in the ground, curiosity induced me to extricate it, for the purpose of seeing how far it had penetrated. After considerable exertion, I succeeded in drawing it out, when I was amazed to find a thick cloth cap on the end of it. It had penetrated the earth to a considerable depth. Subsequently I learned that it [the cap, we presume, but Springer makes sad work of his pronouns] belonged to a man who was killed instantly by its fall, [here our logging friend must be supposed to refer to the timber,] striking him on the head, and carrying his cap into the ground with it."

This is not impossible, although it does a little remind us of certain adventures of the renowned Munchausen. And Springer is so pleasant a fellow, that we shall not call his veracity in question, or even tax him with that tinting of truth in which many of his countrymen excel, but of which he only here and there lays himself open to suspicion. He certainly does put our credulity a little to the strain by an anecdote of a moose deer, which he gives, however, between inverted commas, on the authority of a hunter who occasionally passed the night at the logger's camp. The moose is the largest species of deer found in the New-England forests, its size varying from that of a large pony to that of a full-grown horse. It has immense branching antlers, and, judging from its portrait, which forms the frontispiece to Forest Life, we readily believe Springer's assurance, that "the taking of moose is sometimes quite hazardous." Quite astonishing, we are sure the reader will say, is the following ride:—

"Once," hunter loquitur, "whilst out on a hunting excursion, I was pursued by a bull-moose. He approached me with his muscular neck curved, and head to the ground, in a manner not dissimilar to the attitude assumed by horned cattle when about to encounter each other. Just as he was about to make a pass at me, I sprang suddenly between his wide-spreading antlers, bestride his neck. Dexterously turning round, I seized him by the horns, and, locking my feet together under his neck, I clung to him like a sloth. With a mixture of rage and terror, he dashed wildly about, endeavouring to dislodge me; but, as my life depended upon maintaining my position, I clung to him with a corresponding desperation. After making a few ineffectual attempts to disengage me, he threw out his nose, and, laying his antlers back upon his shoulders, which formed a screen for my defence, he sprang forward into a furious run, still bearing me upon his neck. Now penetrating dense thickets, then leaping high 'windfalls,' (old fallen trees,) and struggling through swamp-mires, he finally fell from exhaustion, after carrying me about three miles. Improving the opportunity, I drew my hunting-knife from its sheath, and instantly buried it in his neck, cutting the jugular vein, which put a speedy termination to the contest and the flight."

After which we presume that he spitted the moose on a pine tree, roasted and ate it, and used its antlers for toothpicks. The adventure is worthy of Mazeppa or the Wild Huntsman. By the antlers forming a screen for the rider's defence, we are reminded of that memorable morning in the life of the great German Baron, when his horse, cut in two, just behind the saddle, by the fall of a portcullis, was sewn together with laurel-twigs, which sprouted up into a pleasant bower, beneath whose appropriate shade the redoubtable warrior thenceforward rode to victory. An awful liar, indeed, must have been the narrator of this "singular adventure," as Springer, who tells this story quite gravely, artlessly styles it. Doubtless such yarns are acceptable enough by the camp-fire, where the weary logger smokes the pipe of repose after a hard day's work; and they are by no means out of place in the logger's book, of which, however, they occupy but a small portion—by far the greater number of its chapters being filled with solid and curious information. The third and longest part, "River Life," upon which we have not touched, is highly interesting, and gives thrilling accounts of the dangers incurred during the progress down stream of the various "parcels" of logs, which, each distinguished like cattle by the owner's mark, soon mingle and form one grand "drive" on the main river. "Driving" of this kind is a very hazardous occupation. Sometimes the logs come to a "jam," get wedged together in a narrow part of the river or amongst rocks, and, whilst the drivers work with axe and lever to set the huge floating field of tree-trunks in motion again, lives are frequently lost. This is easy to understand. The removal of a single log, the keystone of the mass—nay, a single blow of the axe—often suffices to liberate acres of timber from their "dead lock," and set them furiously rushing down the rapid current. Then does woe betide those who are caught in the hurly-burly. Sometimes, the key-log being well ascertained, a man is let down, like a samphire-gatherer, by a rope from an adjacent cliff, on to the "jam." Then—

"As the place to be operated upon may in some cases be a little removed from the shore, he either walks to it with the rope attached to his body, or, untying the rope, leaves it where he can readily grasp it in time to be drawn from his perilous position. Often, where the pressure is direct, a few blows only are given with the axe, when the log snaps in an instant with a loud report, followed suddenly by the violent motion of the 'jam;' and, ere our bold river-driver is jerked half way to the top of the cliff, scores of logs, in wildest confusion, rush beneath his feet, whilst he yet dangles in the air above the trembling mass. If that rope, on which life and hope hang thus suspended, should part, worn by the sharp point of some jutting rock, death, certain and quick, were inevitable."

The wood-cutter's occupation, which, to European imagination, presents itself as peaceful, pastoral, and void of peril, assumes a very different aspect when pursued in North American forests. If any doubt this fact, let them study Springer, who will repay the trouble, and of whose volume we have rather skimmed the surface than meddled with the substance.