“On the day of their departure, they pursued the bear, which took a north-western course for at least twenty miles, and at night stopped upon his track. With great difficulty they lit a fire, having contrived to produce a light by the application of a piece of dry linen to the pan of their gun whilst flashing it. Thus, before a good fire, they spent the first night, which was exceedingly cold, both supperless and sleepless.
“In the morning they continued the chase, as soon as they had eaten a small piece of bread, the crumbs or fragments of their dinner on the preceding day. This was equally divided between themselves and their dog. About noon, when they had travelled on the track, through all its windings and doublings, for at least twenty miles, they were unable to distinguish the north from the south, and of course considered themselves lost in the boundless immensity of interminable forests. They resolved to pursue the bear no longer, conscious that it would lead them still further into the wilderness, from whence they apprehended they could not without difficulty extricate themselves, for the snow was disappearing fast, and the rain continuing to increase. They now recollected, that, in the early part of the day, they had crossed over the track of another bear, which they fancied would lead them to the settlements. This they unwisely resolved to follow, consoling themselves with the thought, that, if it should not conduct them to the abodes of man, it might lead them to the bear’s retreat; and that if they should succeed in killing him in a spot even remote from any settlement, his flesh would afford them nourishment, and his skin a more comfortable couch than the snow-covered deserts on which they had bivouacked the preceding night. Hope, which—though it often bids desponding thoughts depart, and sometimes cheers us in the darkest hour—is too frequently the cause of our expecting where expectation is vain, and disappointment ruinous, had, in the present instance, nearly precipitated its unfortunate votaries into the vortex of irretrievable misery. They followed on the track, until the snow completely disappeared, and the sky became so dreadfully overcast, that they were compelled to relinquish all ideas of hunting, and to think only of escaping from solitude and starvation. They were by this time on the banks of a small rivulet, the course of which they resolved to pursue, expecting that it would eventually lead them to the Thames, into which they calculated, as a matter of undoubted certainty, it emptied itself. On the banks of this rivulet they passed the second night, but were not able to get any sleep. It rained incessantly, and they suffered much from their exposed situation, for they were only partially covered with a few strips of barks. The wolves howled around them, and the tempest “fiercely blew.” The trees bent their proud crests even with the ground; and many, torn up by the roots through the violence of the wind, fell to rise no more, near the very spot on which our travellers vainly sought repose.
View over Lake Memphremagog.
(from the Sugar Loaf.)
“On the third day they continued their journey down the brook, which, growing wider and wider, inclined them to think it was the head of some extensive river, and they hoped it would prove to be that of the Thames. The violence of the storm began to subside about noon, but without any abatement of the cold, or cessation of the rain, which continued to fall during the whole of the day. A little before sunset they fired at a partridge, but unfortunately missed it. Three charges of powder and shot were now all that remained. Still hope, with its sustaining influence, prevented their hearts from sinking within them, and still did they expect a speedy termination of their toils and sufferings. But another joyless night found them waking in all its watches, and another sunless morning saluted them,—the victims of despair.
“On the fourth day, they felt excessively hungry and weak; their thirst also was insatiable, being compelled every five or six minutes to drink. In the afternoon, their hunger increased to such a degree, that they could have eaten any thing except human flesh. Sixty hours had now elapsed without their having tasted food of any kind, and the appalling idea of suffering by starvation for the first time obtruded itself. Before the close of the day, however, they succeeded in shooting a partridge, one-half of which they imprudently ate as their supper, and feasted on the remainder at breakfast the ensuing morning,—thus fulfilling the scriptural injunction in a sense in which it was not conveyed, “Take no thought for the morrow.” They declared their hunger was no more appeased by eating this bird, than it would have been, at a more fortunate period of their lives, by swallowing a cherry! Little more than one charge of powder was now left; and this they resolved to preserve for lighting fires, knowing, as the frost had again set in, that if they were exposed for a single night to the weather, without the protection of a fire, they must inevitably perish.
“The fifth night proved extremely cold, and Nowlan perceived, in the morning, that his feet were badly frozen. Pitiable as their situation was before this heart-rending event, it then became still more wretched. This unfortunate man had now to endure a complication of unprecedented sufferings. To the imperative hankerings of hunger, which he could not satisfy, a continual thirst, which he could not appease, a violent fever, which seemed not to abate, and the “pelting of the pitiless storm,” from which he had no shelter, there was added a species of torment the most excruciating that human nature is doomed to suffer. Until this deplorable event, they had travelled at least fifty miles a day, walking, or, as they expressed it, running from before sunrise until after sunset. They were now unable to perform more than half their accustomed journey, and even that with the utmost difficulty.
“On the afternoon of the sixth day, the sun appeared for a few moments, and convinced them that they were not on the banks of the Thames. The knowledge of this gave them much uneasiness, from a conviction which it impressed on their minds, that they were on the banks of a river which might lead them to the desolate and uninhabited shores of Lake Huron or Lake St. Claire. Still they preferred following its course, hoping to discover some Indian settlement, which they could have no expectation of finding if they departed from its margin. Immediately after the sun had disappeared they discovered a boat on the opposite side of the river, and, a little further down, a canoe. The appearance of these vessels induced them to think that a new settlement could not be far distant; but, when they had travelled several miles further, and had not met with any other traces of inhabitants, they concluded that the vessels had been driven down the river by the ice during the late thaw, and had been stopped at the point where they were first noticed. They were just about to cut down some timber for the night, when they observed a stack of hay a few perches before them, and on their side of the river. The hay appeared to have been mowed on the flats, or shallows, where it grows spontaneously beneath the gloomy shades of the overhanging forest. This circumstance, when coupled with their recent discovery of the boat and canoe, convinced them that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of some settlement. The hay-stack afforded them a comfortable asylum for the night, and appeared to them the most enviable bed on which they had ever reclined.
“On the morning of the seventh day, they rose much refreshed, having enjoyed, for the first time since they left home, a few hours of sound sleep. They were confirmed afresh, by the incident of the stack, in their resolution to keep close to the river, being elated with the idea that it would certainly lead them to some inhabited place. But their dog, the faithful companion of their dangers and partaker in their sufferings, was that morning unable to proceed any farther. When he attempted to follow them, he staggered a few paces, and then fell, but had not power to rise again. The hunger of the men had by this time increased to such a degree, that they could have eaten the most loathsome food; yet they desisted from killing the dog;—they left him to die a lingering death rather than imbrue their hands in the blood of a fellow-sufferer. Scarcely had they proceeded a mile beyond the hay-stack, when they were intercepted by an impassable swamp, which compelled them to leave the direction of the river. Difficulties seemed to surround them on every hand, and success appeared to smile on them for a moment but to add to their other sufferings the pangs of blighted hope and bitter disappointment. They were compelled to wander once more into the pathless desert, with very faint expectations of regaining the river.
“They walked a considerable distance on the eighth day; and at four o’clock on the ninth discerned the tracks of two men and a dog. They now imagined the long-wished for settlement at hand. With renewed spirit and alacrity, therefore, they pushed onward, indulging by the way the pleasing reflection, that the issue of the newly-discovered track would ere long terminate their woes, and bring them to enjoy once more the unspeakable pleasure of human society. Judge, then, what must have been their feelings, when, towards evening, they were brought to the very spot on which they had lain five nights before! Hope now no longer shed her delusive rays into their hearts; and they neither had a thought, nor felt a desire, to prolong a miserable existence. They sat down, therefore, without making a fire, and formed a resolution that night to end both their miseries and their lives. The tears trickled down their haggard cheeks, as they gazed upon each other’s altered countenance; and the chief dread which both felt was, that the one should die before his companion, and leave the survivor to expire unpitied and unseen. Another reflection added poignancy to their sufferings; and that was, the idea of being devoured, after death, by the ravenous monsters of the wilderness. Howay, however, with some degree of fortitude endeavoured to compose himself, trusting that, ’though, after his skin, wolves should destroy his mortal body, yet in his flesh should he see God; whom he should see for himself, and his eyes should behold, and not another.’ But Nowlan, though sixty-four winters had furrowed his cheeks, had very little notion of a future state,—his perishable body alone engrossed his attention. Educated, or rather reared, in this land of impiety and infidelity, his ideas of the Deity and of his attributes were little calculated to elevate his views from the miseries of this world to the felicities of another and a better. He had scarcely ever heard the sound of the gospel, and knew nothing of its offers of mercy. In this world he had no longer any interest; and about the eternal concerns of the next he was wholly ignorant, and seemed utterly unconcerned. How deplorable the situation of such a being! Better for him had he never been born! With bright and well-founded prospects of a blissful immortality, a man may rejoice in the midst of tribulations, if possible still more acute; but, without these powerful consolations in a dying hour, he must sink in despair beneath the accumulated weight of misery and remorse.