d and almost senseless in the mud.
I recollect hearing the crashing of canes, and then the savage roar, and
the yells, and growls, and struggle, and fierce contention, but had
fainted.

"I must now inform the reader that about an hour after I had left the
boat, the captain of an American vessel was pulling up the river, and
was hailed by our men in our long boat. Perceiving them on that side of
the river, and that they were in distress, he pulled toward them, and
they told him what had happened, and that an hour previous I had left
the boat to force my way through the cane brakes, and they had heard
nothing of me since. 'Madness!' cried he, 'he is a lost man. Stay till I
come back from the schooner.' He went back to the schooner, and taking
two of his crew, who were negroes, and his two bloodhounds, into the
boat, he returned immediately; and as soon as he landed, he put the
bloodhounds on my track, and sent the negroes on with them. They had
followed me in all my windings--for it appeared that I had traveled in
all directions--and had come up with me just as I had sunk with
exhaustion, and the panther was so close upon me. The bloodhounds had
attacked the panther, and this was the noise which sounded on my ears as
I lay stupefied at the mercy of the wild beast. The panther was not
easily, although eventually overcome, and the black men coming up, had
found me and borne me in a state of insensibility on board my vessel.
The fever had set upon me, and it was not till three weeks afterward
that I recovered my senses, when I learned what I have told to the
reader."

[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT.]

The Elephant.

Several hunters once surprised a male and female elephant in an open
spot, near a thick swamp. The animals fled toward the thicket, and the
male was soon beyond the reach of the balls from the hunters' guns. The
female, however, was wounded so severely, that she was not able to make
her escape; and the hunters were about to capture her, when the male
elephant rushed from his retreat, and with a shrill and frightful
scream, like the sound of a trumpet, attacked the party. All escaped but
one, the man who had last discharged his gun, and who was standing with
his horse's bridle over his arm, reloading his gun, at the moment the
furious animal burst from the wood. This unfortunate man the elephant
immediately singled out, and before he could spring into his saddle, he
was prepared to revenge the insult tha