Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/226

202 her milk, butter, and poultry: she was much respected by all the country folks.

I remember also that I met an old soldier of the Royal body-guards, who had escaped the massacres of the 5th and 6th October. He had sold a little farm he had in order to buy with the money an elephant, which he had taken the precaution to insure, for in the United States you can insure anything. I was much amused at this novel industry. This soldier of the King's Guards who had left Versailles to become an elephant-driver in North America, had already had the luck to make fourteen thousand francs by exhibiting his noble animal, which perhaps was a direct descendant of the elephant of King Porus. Finding myself only some eighty miles from New York, I was curious to revisit the scenes of some of our battles, and also to inspect the city, which I had never seen except from outside, when our army was blockading it. It was with interest and emotion that I revisited Topanah, on the banks of the Akensie River, where the unfortunate Major André was executed. I