Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/292

 highly honourable to this good poor-man's country. Our neighbour, Major Hooker, has killed fourteen {309} deer and one bear. The deer now killed, in such abundance, fine and fat, are merely skinned, and the hind quarters taken, while all the rest is left rotting on the ground. Cook also met a fine bear, which after he had fired thrice at it, in great rage chased its destroyer, while the dogs were worrying its hind quarters; and, but for the dogs, Cook had been worried by the bear. Two balls more brought it to the ground, wondrous fat and fine, a daily repast, three times a-day, in steaks, for our table, and its skin for wigs for my host's aged sire, the patriarch of Slyers. This morning Mr. Ingle, in descending a ladder from his cock-loft bed-room, into which sun, moon, and stars peep, and all the winds and storms of heaven blow upon us, was left suspended by his arms to the chamber-floor, while the ladder fell from under him. Such are the miserable shifts to which people here submit without grumbling.

2nd.—Both our wooden chimneys caught fire, which soon would have left us in the woods without a shelter. One building so fired, containing 3,000 dollars worth of store goods. What folly to build wooden chimneys, as though a wooden house were not hazardous enough! But a stone chimney would cost a few dollars. Rather, too, than dig a well at the door, Mr. Ingle and others yoke out a horse and water-cart, bringing twelve gallons at a time from a mile distance, having, he states, since he came here, spent, in this work, 700 valuable {310} hours, much more than equal to digging the well. I feel mad with people imposing inconveniences upon themselves, which they would not have submitted to at home, though they might have gained by it.