It was a fine mellow morning when I left Vandalia to pursue my journey over the prairies to Carlisle. For some miles my route lay through a dense clump of old woods, relieved at intervals by extended glades of sparser growth. This road is but little travelled, and so obscure that for most of the way I could avail myself of no other guide than the "_blaze_" upon the trees; and this mark in many places, from its ancient, weather-beaten aspect, seemed placed there by the axe of the earliest pioneer. Rank grass has obliterated the pathway, and overhanging boughs brush the cheek. It was in one of those extended glades I have mentioned that a nobly-antlered buck and his beautiful doe sprang out upon the path, and stood gazing upon me from the wayside until I had approached so near that a rifle, even in hands all unskilled in "gentle woodcraft," had not been harmless. I was even beginning to meditate upon the probable effect of a pistol-shot at twenty paces, when the graceful animals, throwing proudly up their arching necks, bounded off into the thicket. Not many miles from the spot I shared the rough fare of an old hunter, who related many interesting facts in the character and habits of this animal, and detailed some curious anecdotes in the history of his own wild life. He was just about leaving his lodge on a short hunting excursion, and the absence of a rifle alone prevented me from accepting a civil request to bear him company. {231} Most of the route from Vandalia to Carlisle is very tolerable, with the exception of one detestable spot, fitly named "Hurricane Bottom;" a more dreary, desolate, purgatorial region than which, I am very free to say, exists not in Illinois.[153] It is a densely-wooded swamp, composed of soft blue clay, exceedingly tenacious to the touch and fetid in odour, extending nearly two miles. A regular highway over this mud-hole can scarcely be said to exist, though repeated attempts to construct one have been made at great expense: and now the traveller, upon entering this "slough of despond," gives his horse the reins to slump, and slide, and plunge, and struggle through among the mud-daubed trees to the best of his skill and ability.