Besides these, the traveller through rivers and bayous has to fear many other enemies of less note, and but little, if at all, known to naturalists. Among these is the mud vampire, a kind of spider leech, with sixteen short paws round a body of the form and size of the common plate; the centre of the animal (which is black in any other part of the body) has a dark vermilion round spot, from which dart a quantity of black suckers, one inch and a half long, through which they extract the blood of animals; and so rapid is the phlebotomy of this ugly reptile, that though not weighing more than two ounces in its natural state, a few minutes after it is stuck on, it will increase to the size of a beaver hat, and weigh several pounds.
Thus leeched in a large stream, a horse will often faint before he can reach the opposite shore, and he then becomes a prey to the gar fish; if the stream is but small, and the animal is not exhausted, he will run madly to the shore and roll to get rid of his terrible blood-sucker, which, however, will adhere to him, till one or the other of them dies from exhaustion, or from repletion. In crossing the Eastern Texas bayous, I used always to descend from my horse to look if the leeches had stuck; the belly and the breast are the parts generally attacked, and so tenacious are these mud vampires, that the only means of removing them is to pass the blade of a knife under them and cut them off.
But let us leave these disgusting animals, and return to the upland woods and prairies, where nature seems ever smiling, and where the flowers, the birds, and harmless quadrupeds present to the eye a lively and diversified spectacle. One of the prettiest coups d’oeil in the world is to witness the gambols and amusements of a herd of horses, or a flock of antelopes. No kitten is more playful than these beautiful animals, when grazing undisturbed in the prairies; and yet those who, like the Indian, have time and opportunity to investigate, will discover vices in gregarious animals, hitherto attributed solely to man.
It would appear that, even among animals, where there is a society, there is a tyrant and pariah. On board vessels, in a school, or any where, if man is confined in space, there will always be some one lording over the others, either by his mere brutal strength or by his character; and, as a consequence, there is also another, who is spurned, kicked, and beaten by his companions, a poor outcast, whom every body delights in insulting and trampling upon; it is the same among gregarious brutes. Take a flock of buffaloes or horses, or of antelopes; the first glance is always sufficient to detect the two contrasts. Two of the animals will stand apart from the herd, one proudly looking about, the other timid and cast down; and every minute some will leave their grazing, go and shew submission, and give a caress to the one, and a kick or a bite to the other.
Such scenes I have often observed, and I have also witnessed the consequence, which is, that the outcast eventually commits suicide, another crime supposed to be practised only by reasoning creatures like ourselves. I have seen horses, when tired of their pariah life, walk round and round large trees, as if to ascertain the degree of hardness required; they have then measured their distance, and darting with furious speed against it, fractured their skull, and thus got rid of life and oppression.
I remember a particular instance; it was at the settlement. I was yet a boy, and during the hotter hours of the day, I used to take my books and go with one of the missionaries to study near a torrent, under the cool shade of a magnolia.
All the trees around us were filled with numerous republics of squirrels, scampering and jumping from branch to branch, and, forgetful of every thing else, we would sometimes watch their sport for hours together. Among them we had remarked one, who kept solitary between the stems of an absynth shrub, not ten yards from our usual station. There he would lie motionless for hours basking in the sun, till some other squirrels would perceive him. Then they would jump upon him, biting and scratching till they were tired, and the poor animal would offer no resistance, and only give way to his grief by plaintive cries.
At this sight, the good Padre did not lose the opportunity to inculcate a lesson, and after he had finished speaking, he would strike his hands together to terrify the assailants.
“Yes,” observed I, using his own words, “it is nature.”
“Alas! no,” he would reply; “’tis too horrible to be nature; it is only one of the numerous evils generated from society.” The Padre was a great philosopher, and he was right.