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The horse was taken on board, the boat securely fastened by a strong rope at the bow and stern, so as to hold her broadside against the current, and then the contrivance began dragging her slowly toward the opposite shore. During the spring months and the period of high water, a great many rafts of lumber descend the Castaran, though the number is not so great of late years as formerly.
Wolfe had not much time that evening to consider the situation, which might well have appalled a less stout heart than his, for the troops had scarcely landed when a sudden summer storm burst upon the scene, churned the river into angry waves, broke some of the smaller ships from their moorings, casting them upon the rocks, and staving in many of the boats and rafts.
Among these rocks logs of loose timber are caught, which have escaped from their proper courses, and here they lie, heaped up in some places, and constructing themselves into bridges in others, till the freshets of the spring carry them off. The timber is generally brought down in logs to St. Anthony, is sawn there, and then sent down the Mississippi in large rafts.
Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island, and to see what other productions I might find, which yet I knew nothing of. It was the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore.
It was called a "boom town" for the reason that "booms" or yards for holding pine logs laced the quiet bayou and supplied several large mills with timber. Busy saws clamored from the islands and great rafts of planks and lath and shingles were made up and floated down into the Mississippi and on to southern markets.
Some idea of the rapidity of this river may be formed from the fact that heavy rafts of timber are floated down from Herriot's Falls, a distance of nine miles from Peterborough, in less than an hour. The shores are bold and rocky, and abound in beautiful and picturesque views. Man of strange race! stern dweller of the wild! Nature's free-born, untamed, and daring child!
The Major said that after four years of roughing it, he now meant to take his comfort wherever he could find it, even though it was only on a raft. So the Venture's "shanty" was very different from the rude lean-to or shelter of rough boards, such as was to be seen on most of the timber rafts of the great river.
As day fades into night the monotony of this strange prospect grows oppressive. I seek the engine-room, and in the company of some of the few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked up from temporary rafts, I forget the general aspect of desolation in their individual misery. Later we meet the San Francisco packet, and transfer a number of our passengers.
Provisions came to an end, the troops became troublesome and mutinous; with the exception of a few divisions, which succeeded in reaching the mainland on rafts, the corps, still fifteen cohorts strong, laid down their arms and were conveyed in the vessels of Libo to Macedonia to be there incorporated with the Pompeian army, while Octavius was left to complete the subjugation of the Illyrian coast now denuded of troops.
The Government has lately become very strict in preserving the timber on Congress land, which was formerly cut at random, and by any body who chose. Government agents watch the loggers, and if these are anywhere caught cutting timber on Congress land their rafts are seized and sold.
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