I
charged myself with a spy-glass, strapped, and portfolio. Dr. Houghton
carried a plant press. Each one had something, and the men toiled with
five canoes, Our provisions, beds, tent, &c. The path was one of the
most intricate and tangled that I ever knew. Tornadoes appeared to have
cast down the trees in every direction. A soft spongy mass, that gave
way under the tread, covered the interstices between the fallen timber.
The toil and fatigue were incessant. At length we ascended the first
height. It was an arid eminence of the pebble and erratic block era,
bearing small gray pines and shrubbery. This constituted our first
pause, or _puggidenun._ On descending it, we were again plunged among
bramble. Path, there was none, or trail that any mortal eye, but an
Indian's, could trace. We ascended another eminence. We descended it,
and entered a thicket of bramble, every twig of which seemed placed
there to bear some token of our wardrobe, as we passed. To avoid this,
the guide passed through a lengthened shallow pond, beyond which the
walking was easier.
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