LOST IN THE WOODS.

FEW things are grander than a Western forest. The trees remind one of stern old royalists, standing in grave, never-bending dignity, interlacing their lofty branches, so as to preserve an unbroken gloom, in the shades of which they hold a solemn court.

The mail-road from Holly Springs, (Miss.,) going directly south, through the city of Jackson to New-Orleans, runs in many places through the deepest, most undisturbed woods. A most gloriously beautiful October morning discovered me, seated upon a good horse, and with a double-barrelled gun, balanced across the pommel of my saddle, guarding a deer-stand,' in the depths of a portion of this wild forest. Taking it for granted that my reader knows that a 'deer-stand' is a partial opening in the trees, through which the deer, frightened out by drivers, sent in for that purpose, is always expected to run, (if he never knew it before, let him now consider himself informed,) I will proceed with my story. The 'stands' in the present instance were located at a considerable distance from one another, partly because of the paucity of the huntsmen, and partly owing to the rarity of the openings. The horns of the drivers and the long-drawn yelps of the deer-hounds, borne over the tree-tops by the morning breeze, sent the blood bounding through every vein.

'HEAVENS! what melodious strains! how beat our hearts
Big with tumultuous joy! the loaded gales
Breathe harmony; and as the tempest drives
From wood to wood, through every dark recess,
The forest thunders, and the mountains shake.
The chorus swells; less various and less sweet
The trilling notes, when in those very groves
The feathered choristers salute the spring,
And every bush in concert join; or when
The master's hand, in modulated air,

Bids the loud organ breathe, and all the powers
Of music in one instrument combine
An universal minstrelsy.'

Somerville's beautiful lines were engaging so much of my attention that I had fallen into an exceedingly unsportsmanlike reverie, when my ear detected a pattering noise among the leaves, and before I could recall myself to think what caused it, a most magnificent buck sprang lightly over some intervening under-growth into the opening which it bordered. My presence was, for a second, unnoticed by him, and it was only when my gun was at my shoulder that he beheld me, and with an enormous leap bounded past me across the stand. So perfectly lightning-like was the rapidity with which he shot by, that I had barely time to cover him and to fire one barrel before he disappeared amid the dense foliage. Detecting, from the lack of uniformity in his leaps, that he was wounded, I spurred my horse and rode at a half-gallop through the bushes, which grew around in great luxuriance.

Guided by the noise made in the leaves, I caught sight of him once more, going with long jumps, down a gently declining sink in the forest. Once more I fired, and again with evident effect. His jumps were plainly more labored, and as he passed over a slight elevation, my impression was that I would find him dead on the other side. Upon surmounting the hill, however, I beheld him again, three hundred yards off, and mending his pace at that. Having loaded my gun as I rode slowly up the elevation, I again set forward, as the absence of undergrowth now permitted me to do, at the full speed of my horse. My utmost efforts merely enabled me to keep him in view. The nature of the ground, too, was rendering this every moment more difficult. Hills and sudden depressions were constantly occurring, and I was obliged to confess that my prey was rapidly increasing the distance between us. Determined on making a final effort, I buried my spurs in my horse's flanks and attempted to gain a few yards by springing across a small bit of swamp ground. I have an indistinct recollection of a dark shape rising, as it were, from out of the very centre of the miniature morass; of my horse starting back on the point of the leap; and of myself flying, like a shot out of a mortar, over his head. Then followed oblivion.

The noon-day sun was pouring down a flood of radiant heat full in my face when next I opened my eyes. With keen, shooting pains running through my back and shoulders, I made an effort to rise, but with a groan of agony sank back into the mud, into which, having been thrown completely heels over head, I had fallen, and in which I was now lying flat on my back. The yielding nature of the soil was my preservation. The velocity with which I was carried was so great that I had gone entirely over the swamp spot, and had struck the soft ground on its farther edge. By slow degrees I dragged myself out on firm land, and after repeated trials, rose to my feet and looked about me. The place over which I had attempted to leap was only ten or fifteen feet in width, though of considerable length. My horse's tracks were visible down to the edge, from which they turned back again into the forest. Finding my pain to arise more from stiffness than from any physical injury, I walked slowly around the morass, in order to get my gun. To my surprise and no small regret, I could discover no trace of it anywhere. After carefully searching the adjacent ground, I came to the conclusion that it must have been buried in the soft mud, and having got a pole, I commenced pushing about in the swamp with a hope of finding it. In my thrusts with the pole, I struck upon something hard, and upon examination, found a log, concealed by the mud, and affording a firm, though invisible bridge from the outer edge into the centre of the treacherous soil. Creeping carefully along this, I reached the central clump of shrubs, and found upon parting them, a vacant space, in which the dead leaves and reeds were trampled down into a sufficient consistency to bear my weight. The spot bore all the appearances of a lair for some wild animal, and my mind instantly recurred to the half-seen figure, which, hitherto forgotten, I now remembered to have sprung up from this spot, frightening my horse and causing my own unfortunate mishap. Relinquishing all hope of finding my

gun, I made my way back to 'terra firma,' and was now beset by a new and fearful suspicion. It had never occurred to me that the deerstands were ten miles from any known habitation; that I had followed the buck for a great while at a great speed, and must, of consequence, have come a great distance. These things now flashed rapidly before my mind, and a careful survey of the surrounding woods forced irresistibly upon me the conclusion that I was lost!

To find yourself in unfamiliar woods, with a knowledge, however, that a sufficiently long walk in almost any direction, will intersect some road, is a very unimportant matter. But to know that the wild, dark forest stretches for hundreds and hundreds of miles, with one or two small villages, at great distances apart, and with but one travelled road, with every prospect of wandering to-and-fro and around a circle of monotony, until starvation or fatigue causes you to stop, is horrible. Oh how horrible, I can fully testify.

I knew that the great mail-road ran parallel with the Mississippi, and I knew that although this road was obliged to be at least thirty miles off, I would be more likely to fall into some country path in that direction than in any other. So, grasping a small sapling which I cut with my hunting-knife, to aid my slow steps, I set off manfully through the forest.

Mile after mile I plodded wearily along, now pushing my way through the dense under-growth, and now coming into the broad, open woods, where, far as the eye could reach, the huge trees exhibited their straight trunks, unencumbered by a branch, within forty feet of the ground. My spirits sank with the sinking sun. The sad autumn wind was chanting a mournful song through the tall tree-tops; otherwise the silence was oppressive. The sun-beams were falling in long, slanting lines through the forest, as I seated myself, entirely exhausted, upon a decayed log. A gray squirrel scampered along it to the farther end, and then turning, with his bushy tail curled over his back, surveyed me with the liveliest curiosity. It was probably his first sight of a man. At another time my arm would almost involuntarily have attempted his capture, but now I had no heart for sport. The 'sear and yellow leaves' drifted rapidly down, and decay seemed to have stamped its signet upon all of nature's works. My blood bounded through my veins as a beautiful deer came leaping lightly over the ground, now stopping to nip off a twig, and cropping a bunch of evergreen growing amidst the dead leaves. I shook an adjacent bush and in an instant the wild animal disappeared from my view. The shades of dusky twilight were gathering thickly around me, when I rose once more to pursue my unknown journey. I had now lost all reckoning of the direction of my course. I was wandering blindly on, not having the most remote conception of the way in which my steps were treading. With the saddest, most depressing emotions, I dragged my aching limbs along, the wide, solemn forest being disturbed by no sound save the rustling of my feet amid the withered leaves. The dark, dreary night had now commenced, and a cold chill ran over me as the solitary, longdrawn howl of a wolf startled my acutely sensitive ear. These animals

had become very scarce in the neighborhood, and I knew that I must be far away from the habitations of men to hear one at all. The light afforded by the stars enabled me to avoid the trees as I walked, and I continued my efforts with all the energy of despair. I have no idea how late it was nor how far I had gone when a sickening, swimming sensation compelled me to stop and sit down upon the ground. It soon passed off, but my wearied limbs refused to bear me farther, so I crept up to an enormous tree, and having, much to my gratification, discovered a huge hollow in it, I collected a deep bed of leaves, and after starting back as a large hooting owl with a two-whit, two-who,' flew over my head, I coiled myself up closely in the cavity and applied my faculties to getting to sleep. Even in the midst of my mental depression, an amusing remark of an Irish protegé of my grand-father's in reference to his being himself on one occasion lost in the woods, caused me to laugh. The old gentleman asked him: 'What measures of extrication had suggested themselves to him, buried in the deep, dark forest?'

'Oh!' said he, 'I first thought I'd advairtiz' meself.'

I know not how long I had slept (for I had no trouble getting to sleep) when with a sudden start I awoke. I had been dreaming of dogs and deer, and it was some time before I could convince myself that the vociferous yelps were not vestiges of my somnolent delusions. A sharp bark within a few feet of me completely aroused me, and the next instant a pack of four or five hounds were circling with frantic leaps around the tree, and barking as though they had 'treed' a whole family of opossums. The tramp of feet now sounded among the leaves, and my sleep-clogged eyes beheld the broad glare cast by a pine-knot torch through the dark shadows. The bearer of this was next visible, a strong, merry-faced negro fellow, as black as the ace of spades.' With shuffling strides he approached, but the next moment, catching a sight of my pale, cadaverous face, streaked with blood from numerous scratches, and half hid by my disordered hair, peering out at him from the hollow tree, he let fall his torch and with a yell of terror, took to his heels, crying, Lawd-a-mussy' at every step. Happily for me his companion, a young white lad, was not so readily frightened; and upon my coming forth and telling my story, he proposed to me, as his 'opossum hunt' was ended, to return home with him, which I did, and on the day following was sent to my residence: I had wandered twenty miles from it.

My chagrin was great on my arrival, to find that my horse had never come home. Two weeks afterward, as I glanced over the columns of a newspaper, published in a neighboring county, my eye fell upon the subjoined notice :

On Saturday last, the noted run-away slave, Crook-Fingered Dick,' was apprehended and imprisoned in this jail. He was riding a valuable horse, and had in his possession a fine shot-gun. Says he found

them in the woods. The owner will please come forward, prove his titles, pay the charges, and take his property away.

'Oct. 20th, 1856.

T. A. JOYCE, Jailer.'

and having described the horse

I went over instantly to D and gun without seeing them, had them delivered to me. My claims were perfectly established by Dick' himself, who told me afterward that my horse had been frightened by him as he rose from his concealment, fearful that I would discover him. Seeing my insensibility, he had stolen my horse and gun and rode off. I have n't been on a deerhunt since that time.

Athens, (Ga.)

W. H. W.

OH! for the sea, the wide deep sea!
Happy is he, thrice happy is he,

Who findeth a home on the wide deep sea.
He seeks not fame, and he seeks not gold,

For he is the 'monarch of all he beholds;'

Speak nothing to him of the treacherous wave,
Alluring him on to a watery grave;

For his home is over the wide deep sea,

And the song that he breathes is the song of the free
He lists with a rapture deep and mute,
To the answering notes of the ocean lute,
While he sinks away to a peaceful sleep,
Rocked in the arms of the mighty deep.
But dreams he not of the lightning's flash,
And lists he not to the thunder's crash,
For his ear is attuned to the sweeter sound
Of the mermaid's song and the waves around;
With voices low he hears them sing

Of the royal abode of the Ocean King:
Its walls are cut from the coral reef,
And vines of the pearl and emerald leaf
Twine gracefully over its pillars of snow,
And gracefully wave with the ocean's flow;
The roof is of shells of the ocean strung,
On a silver cord with pearls among;
And gold-fish through the bright waves leap,
As birds through the realms of the upper deep.
Then the musical voices seem far away,

Till he hears not more of the ocean lay;

And when the terrible Storm-King raves,

And the lightnings play with the mountain waves
When the hurricane tells in its angry blast

That

every moment may be his last,

He lifts his silent prayer to Heaven,
And safety to his bark is given:

Then sings he again of the wide deep sea,

Home of the brave and home of the free.