ordinary circumstances. The treatment here employed by nature, to bring to perfection the fruit of the vine may be imitated; but without the same peculiarities of soil and exposure, and with difficulty be carried to the same magnificent extent. Here are hundreds of acres, covered with a movable surface of sand, and abounding in vines, which, left to the agency of the sun and the winds, are, by their operation, placed in more favourable circumstances than it is in the power of man, to so great an extent, to afford. We indulged ourselves to excess, if excess could be committed in the use of such delicious and salutary fruit, and invited by the cleanness of the sand, and a refreshing shade, we threw ourselves down, and slept away, with unusual zest, a few of the hours of a summer afternoon. Our hunters had been as successful as could be wished, and at evening we assembled around a full feast of "marrow-bones;" a treat whose value must for ever remain unknown to those who have not tried the adventurous life of the hunter. We were often surprised to witness in ourselves a proof of the facility with which a part at least of the habits of the savage could be adopted. Having been in several instances compelled to practise a tedious abstinence, the return of plenty found us well disposed to make amends for these temporary privations; and we lingered, {317} almost involuntarily, at every meal, as if determined not only to supply the deficiency of the past, but to secure such ample supplies as would enable us to defy the future. The grapes and plums, so abundant in this portion of the country, are eaten by turkies and black bears, and the plums by wolves or jackals, as we conclude, from observing plumstones in the excrement of one of those animals. It is difficult to conceive whence such numbers of predatory animals and birds, as exist in every part of the country where the bisons are present, can derive sufficient supplies for the sustenance of life; and it is indeed sufficiently evident, their existence is but a protraction of the sufferings of famine.