ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.
PART II.
THE BLOCKHOUSE.
Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead, we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.
"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.
"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.
"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."
While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge and place of defence than an habitual residence.
A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound. There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed through, we following.