the Count's
ordinary residence at Emerillon, near Clery, four leagues southwest of
Orleans, ten leagues south of the Loire, at the commencement of the
plains of Sologne. The surface was from north to south, and was about of
the same breadth with the other. These _exciting tracts_ form, in
general, bands or zones of undetermined, and often very great length.
Their breadth is very variable. Some are only three or four feet across,
while others are one hundred paces. These tracts are sometimes sinuous
and sometimes ramify. To the most susceptible they are broader than to
those who are less so.

The Count thus describes what happens when a competent person, armed
with a hazel fork, walks over these _exciting_ districts.

When two or three steps have been made upon the exciting tract of
ground, the fork (which I have already said is to be held horizontally
with its central angle forward,) begins gently to ascend; it gradually
attains a vertical position--sometimes it passes beyond that, and
lowering itself with its point towards the chest of the operator, it
becomes again horizontal. If the motion continue, the rod, descending,
becomes vertical with the angle downwards. Finally, the rod may again
ascend and reassume its first horizontal position, having thus completed
a revolution. When the action is very lively, the rod immediately
commences a second revolution; and so it goes on as long as the operator
walks over the exciting surface of ground.

It is to be understood that the operator does not grasp the handles of
the fork so tightly but that they may turn in his hands. If, indeed, he
tries to prevent this, and the fork is only of hazel twig, the rotatory
force is so strong as to twist it at the handles and crack the bark, and
finally, fracture the wood itself.

I can imagine you at this statement endeavouring to hit the proper
intonation of the monosyllable "Hugh," frequently resorted to by Uncas,
the son of Chingachkook, as well as by his parent, on similar occasions;
though I remember to have read of none so trying in their experience. I
anticipate the remarks you would subsequently make, which the graver
Indian would have politely repressed:--"By my patience, this bangs
Banagher, and exhausts credulity. The assertion of these dry
impossibilities is too choking to listen to. The fork cannot go down in
this crude and unprotected state. It is as inconvenient a morsel as the
'Amen' inopportunely suggested to the consc