heavens asunder dazed us momentarily with its almost unendurable
sound. The gloomy canopy above us, meanwhile, was overrun by incessant
streams of purple lightning, and the deluge of rain still fell. At
length we reached the Big House, (somewhat ostentatiously reducing the
speed of our horses to a walk as we came within sight of its embowered
windows,) and were soon dripping in the kitchen. A change of apparel,
calling into requisition Mexican _ponchos_ and other picturesque
garments, with a smoke beside a roaring fire, completely obviated
all dangerous consequences; nor was it without feelings of great
satisfaction that B. and myself watched tranquilly from our comfortable
ensconcement the beatings of the storm on the encircling forest.

The Big House, I found, was full of legends of the Pine Rats. This
extraordinary race of beings are lineal descendants of the New Jersey
Tories, who, during the Revolution, made the Pines their refuge, whence
they sallied in perpetual forays against the farms and dwellings of the
partisans of the opposite cause. Several hundreds of these fanatical
desperadoes made the forest their home, and laid waste the surrounding
townships by their sudden raids. Most barbarous cruelties were practised
on both sides, in the contests which continually took place between
Whigs and Tories, and the unnatural seven-years' war possessed nowhere
darker features than in the neighborhood of the New Jersey Pines.
Remains of these forest-freebooters are still discovered from time to
time, in the process of clearing the woods, and unmistakable relics are
occasionally met with in the denser portions of the forest, which must
have been comparatively open eighty years ago.

The degraded descendants of these Tories constitute the principal
difficulty with which a proprietor in this region has to contend.
Completely besotted and brutish in their ignorance, they are incapable
of obtaining an honest living, and have supported themselves, from a
time which may be called immemorial, by practising petty larceny on
an organized plan. The Pine Rat steals wood, steals game, steals
cranberries, steals anything, in fact, that his hand can be laid upon;
and woe to the property of the man who dares attempt to restrain him! A
few weeks may, perhaps, elapse, after the tattered savage has received a
warning or a reprimand, and then a column of smoke will be seen stealing
up from some quarter in the forest;--he has set the woods on