[Footnote 3: "_Return with it or upon it_" was the well-known injunction of a Greek mother, as she handed her son his shield previous to the fight.] [Footnote 4: The mummy-wheat.] * * * * * THE PRAIRIE AND THE SWAMP. AN ADVENTURE IN LOUISIANA. It was a sultry September afternoon in the year 18--. My friend Carleton and myself had been three days wandering about the prairies, and had nearly filled our tin boxes and other receptacles with specimens of rare and curious plants. But we had not escaped paying the penalty of our zeal as naturalists, in the shape of a perfect roasting from the sun, which had shot down its rays during the whole time of our ramble, with an ardour only to be appreciated by those who have visited the Louisianian prairies. What made matters worse our little store of wine had been early expended; some Taffia, with which we had replenished our flasks, had also disappeared; and the water we met with, besides being rare, contained so much vegetable and animal mater, as to be undrinkable unless qualified in some manner. In this dilemma, we came to a halt under a clump of hickory trees, and dispatched Martin, Carleton's Acadian servant, upon a voyage of discovery. He had assured us that we must erelong fall in with some party of Americans--or Cochon Yankees, as he called them--who, in spite of the hatred borne them by the Acadians and Creoles, were daily becoming more numerous in the country. After waiting, in anxious expectation of Martin's return, for a full hour, during which the air seemed to get more and more sultry, my companion began to wax impatient. "What can the fellow be about?" cried he. "Give a blast on the horn," he added, handing me the instrument; "I cannot sound it myself, for my tongue cleaves to my palate from heat and drought." I put the horn to my mouth, and gave a blast. But the tones emitted were not the clear echo-awakening sounds that cheer and strengthen the hunter. They were dull and short, as though the air had lost all elasticity and vibration, and by its weight crushed back the sounds into the horn. It was a warning of some inscrutable danger. We gazed around us, and saw that others were not wanting.