streams, like ditches, occasionally presented themselves suddenly to my view, when I was within a few steps of plunging into them from their perpendicular sides, which were overhung with long wild grass, and almost obscured from the sight. The bearings of my compass told me that I must cross them, and the only alternative was to plunge into them, and get out as well as I could. They were often muddy, and I could not tell whether they were three or ten feet deep, until my horse was in them; and sometimes he went down head foremost, and I with him, to scramble out on the opposite shore in the best condition we could. In one of these canals, which I had followed for several miles in the vain hope of finding a shoal, or an accustomed ford, I plunged, with Charley, where it was about six or eight yards wide (and God knows how deep, for we did not go to the bottom), and swam him to the opposite bank, on to which I clung; and which, being perpendicular and of clay, and three or four feet higher than the water, was an insurmountable difficulty to Charley; and I led the poor fellow at least a mile, as I walked on the top of the bank, with the bridle in my hand, holding his head above the water as he was swimming; and I at times almost inextricably entangled in the long grass that was often higher than my head, and hanging over the brink, filled and woven together, with ivy and wild pea-vines. I at length (and just before I was ready to drop the rein of faithful Charley, in hopeless despair), came to an old buffalo ford, where the banks were graded down, and the poor exhausted animal, at last got out, and was ready and willing to take me and my luggage (after I had dried them in the sun) on the journey again.