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My dear sir, did you ever shoot a deer? But I
dare say you don't have deer to shoot in Independence
Square! Do you think it would be cruel to kill one if
you had them there? One week ago I was innocent of
the blood of any one of these pretty, brown animals;
but, alas! I am sorry to confess that I have shot a deer
since I last wrote you, and although it is not dead, I
feel as badly as if I had wounded a helpless, human being.
Its reproachful, pleading look, as it turned its
large, intelligent eyes upon me, I can never forget! I
will tell you how it happened.

The colonel had been invited to “Chestnut Ridge,”
seven miles from the Park, by an old military friend,
who is as keen a sportsman as Nimrod ever was, to hunt
deer. The invitation was accepted, and Isabel and myself
were taken along with the gallant colonel to witness
the sport! Sad sport to see the innocent animals that so
grace the glade of the green forest slaughtered! Rising
with the dawn, we took an early breakfast, and mounted
our horses just as the sun, like a wheel of gold, rolled
up the east. I was no longer mounted on the spirited
and pretty little mule, which played me such a runaway
prank last November, but rode a handsome black pony,
with a long tail and a magnificent mane, and the smallest

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ears conceivable. His pace was as gentle as a cradle,
and he stepped over the grass, as if he trod on velvet
in a drawing-room. The colonel rode a noble charger,
of a dark-bay color, with a neck arched and proud, like
a war-horse; and such he was, for the colonel had ridden
him into many a battle strife on the fields of Mexico.
The superb animal, as he pawed the earth and pranced
along through the woodlands, seemed still “to smell the
battle afar off, and the thunder of the captains and the
shouting.” What grace and strength were united in him!

Next to man, the horse is unquestionably the noblest
created thing. But of all majestic forms conceivable to
human imagination, I have never seen any thing that
equals that mighty tri-formed figure to be found portrayed
in Layard's Nineveh. I mean the sublime form
composed of a body of a lion, of the wings of an eagle,
and of the face of a man. No one can gaze upon it without
admiration and awe. It represents strength, fleetness,
and intelligence embodied, and the result is a
creature that rivals in dignity, majesty, and glory, and
symmetry, man himself!

But I am running away from my party. Isabel, the
beautiful, Spanish-looking Isabel, rode by her father's
left hand, mounted upon a mottled palfrey that seemed
formed especially for herself. His small head, his transparent,
pink nostrils, his slender fetlocks as neat as a
lady's ankle, his dainty footfall, as his deerlike hoofs
picked out the smoothest way for his mistress, were all
characteristics of the Arabian race, from which it claimed
lineage. What decided aristocracy there is in the horse!
They differ as widely from each other as men do, and
how widely these are separate in excellency of lineage!

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There is nobility of birth as there is vulgarity of birth!
There are gentlemen who are gentlemen by nature.
I am not a believer in the axiom that all men are born
equal, and that education, or the want of it, makes men
equal. There is gentility and refinement of feature that
education cannot give, and there is vulgarity of feature
that education cannot ennoble. When a double-headed,
double-jointed plough-horse, or any of its kith, can be
educated to with a Derby cup, then I shall believe that a
vulgar mind and a vulgar face can, by education, be refined
and ennobled. We had a merry ride of it through
the grand woods! How we laughed till echo laughed
again. One can be as noisy as one pleases in the country.
There was a white frost on the ground, and the
crisp grass crashed and crackled as we pressed its crystal
spears. The birds (for many birds dwell in the forest
here all the year round) were singing to the morning with
gladness in their tiny breasts; the squirrel bounded
from limb to limb, or raced with nimble feet across the
sward, and darted up some tall trunk, going higher and
higher, and carefully keeping on the side opposite to us;
for they are a cunning wee thing, with their bushy tails
arched over their round backs, and their twinkling, pretty
eyes as watchful as weasels. There was no regular forest
path, but we threaded the wood at will, for the trees
grew far asunder, and the total absence of underbrush
made it like park-land. The surface of the country
was undulating and picturesque. At one time we would
descend to a gurgling brook rushing hoarsely away from
the rocks in its bed, and, fording its translucent waters
at another time, find ourselves at the top of a ridge that
opened to us a far spread river view.

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In our ride of five miles we met but three persons.
One of these was an old African with a head as white as
wool, and a face, venerable and lined with age, and a snowy
beard. His appearance was striking, and reminded me
of a black patriarch, especially as he wore a gray blanket
over his shoulder like a mantle. And let me remark,
that a blanket completes a negro's winter costume
here; sometimes it is made into a coat, but more frequently,
for the advantage of having it as a covering
at night, worn entire, like a shawl, or a Spanish poncho.
The African was leading a tall Congo stripling, half-naked
to the waist, who had a hanging countenance, as if he
were an offender of some sort.

“That is old Juba with his grandson Tom, tied,” said
the colonel, as they drew near. “Tom has been playing
the runaway in the woods these three weeks. So, uncle
Juba,” added the colonel in the kind, familiar tone in
which masters here, who are gentlemen, address their old
slaves; “so you've caught Tom?”

“Ees, mosse, me cotch de berry bad boy! He nebber
raise heself for noting good uf he get de habit ob runnin'
'way dis way! Old Juba feel berry shame ob him. Me
gib him frashun, me git him home. He disgrace to de
family! Come 'long, you nigger, a'n't you shame youself,
run off in de wood like a dog-tief?”

With this appeal, the old man gave the thong a jerk,
and, touching his old hat in respectful homage to his
master and to ourselves as “young mississes,” dragged
his ragamuffin grandson of eighteen years on the way
back to the plantation.

“That old negro,” said the colonel, as we rode on,
“has been in my family seventy-eight years. He was

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bought by my grandfather before the Revolution from
an African trader that came into Jamestown with a load
of slaves from the coast of Africa. He was then a lad
of fourteen, and is of course now ninety-two; yet he is
never idle, is active and faithful, and is a sort of patriarch
over the rest of the slaves, half of whom are his
descendants. He has not yet forgotten his African language,
which he still speaks when he is vexed, nor has
he dropped his heathenish superstitions. He wears about
his neck full half a dozen charms of one sort or another,
and is a firm believer in the devil, whom he says he has
seen bodily a hundred times. His influence over the
negroes is very extraordinary. They stand in awe of
him. His grandson, you see, is a tall, stout fellow, and
might get away from him; but he would as soon think
of striking the old man as resisting his authority.

We had not ridden more than a mile after parting
with Juba and his captive, when we saw a figure standing
as motionless as a statue in the forest ahead of us. The
attitude was free and commanding, and a nearer approach
showed us that it was an Indian. He was leaning
on his rifle. He wore a sort of coronet, made of
brass, encircling his crow-black head, and ornamented
with crow and eagle's feathers. He was dressed in a
blue frock, trimmed with tarnished gold lace, and belted
close to his body by a stout leathern cincture. Hanging
upon his brawny chest were several silver medals. On
his left wrist were five hoops or bracelets of brass, close
together, and being riveted on whole, were evidently
meant to be worn till his death. He wore deer-skin leggins,
the seams fringed, and his feet were encased in
once handsomely ornamented moccasins, which had seen

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service. In his belt were a powder-horn, a long knife
in a sheath of serpent's skin, a pouch for balls, flints, &c,
and another large one for miscellaneous articles. His
rifle was very long, slender, without any groove-stock
for the barrel to rest in, and had a flint lock. I had
time to observe all these particulars, for we stopped and
held some minutes' “talk” with the warrior; for warrior
he was, having fought under General Jackson long years
agone; and two of the medals suspended from his neck
were bestowed upon him, the colonel said, by the “hero.”
The Indian was full sixty years of age, but time had
scarcely whitened a hair of his lofty head. Proud, stern,
dignified as a king, he neither moved nor regarded us as
we rode up to him.

“Good morning, Captain John,” said the colonel; “a
fine day for the deer! You seem to be on the chase as
well as we!”

The Indian chief smiled at hearing the courteous and
bland words of the colonel, and answered in a deep barytone,
that completely came up to my idea of a “manly
voice.”

“Ya, white chief! Good morn'! Deer not much
plenty! Good day hunt, but deer not much plenty!
White man leave no more deer for Indian rifle!” and he
slowly shook his head, cast his eyes sadly to the earth,
and remained silent.

“Why do you and your people not remove west,
chief?” asked the colonel. “You will find vast hunting
grounds there—no white man will intrude upon you—
you can there be happy and powerful!”

“Indian never more be great, white chief!” responded

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the old warrior, with a heavy cloud darkening the noble
outline of his Washington like features.

As he spoke, he turned and strode away with the air
and bearing of Forrest as Metamora, save that the one
is imitation, and the other nature.

“Who is that noble looking chief?” I inquired of
the colonel, for his sullen pride and solitary condition
had inspired me with a curiosity to know his history.

“That is the celebrated Creek chief Nelastora,” was
his reply, as we resumed our ride, while the chief disappeared
in the depths of the woodland. “He was an ally
of Jackson's in the Indian wars, and was of great assistance
to the cause. The encroachments of civilization
upon his hunting grounds, which were once a hundred
miles in extent through this region, have compelled most
of his tribe to remove to the west of the Mississippi.
But he and a few of his friends refuse to go. He has
sworn, I am told, upon the graves of his fathers, that he
will never desert them, but remain to protect and die
upon them! And he will keep his word. Sometimes he
is seen a hundred miles south of this, but he is never
long absent from the central seat of his tribe, which is a
beautiful valley thirty miles to the east and south of us.
I have before met him in the forest, but he refused all
offers of hospitality, and will cross the threshold of no
white man. Crockett and this chief were once like
brothers, yet he never sat at the American hunter's
board. Three years ago, Nelastora was seen standing
by General Jackson's grave at the Hermitage, regarding
it in silence; but when he was approached, he haughtily
retired.”

By the time the colonel had ended this history, we

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were winding up an avenue that led to the mansion
house of the old soldier, whom we had visited for the
purpose of hunting deer with him.

On either hand, the ancient woods were replaced by
broad cotton fields, which at this season were unplanted.
A quarter of a mile from the house, a white gate, thrown
open by half a dozen little shining-eyed negroes, conducted
us to the grounds more immediately contiguous
with the house, viz: a wide rolling lawn, adorned at intervals
with native fruit trees. We approached the
verandah of the house at a hard gallop, and were received
by our military host with a hearty old-fashioned
hospitality, that could only be exceeded by the polished
courtesy of his manners. He kissed both Isabel and
me! But then, Mr. —, he was full fifty-nine, had
gray whiskers, and—and he always made it a point of
kissing all pretty young ladies that came to see him. So,
unless you are fifty-nine, and have gray whiskers, you
mustn't presume upon this circumstance to think—to
think—you may end the sentence yourself, if you please.

p613-096

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