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Show [P! 40 SAW-MILL ON THE TOBIHANNA----BEAR-TRAP. numbers under the old, decayed trunks, frequently fled as we advanced. Rattlesnakes are said to be less common than in the parts which we had before visited. Birds were not numerous in the deep recesses of these forests; only the hammering of the woodpeckers resounded in the awful wilderness. In places where there was much underwood, very thick stems of rhododendron, often from ten to twenty feet high, formed an intricate, impenetrable thicket. It was now perfectly dark, and we found the most beautiful natural arbours. The Kalmia latifolia, too, grew to the height of eight or ten feet. This country was so wild and attractive that I resolved to stop another day. To the north-east of the solitary dwelling of the Widow Sachs, was a fine beech forest, among the underwood of which pheasants were pretty numerous. We procured some of them, but I could not yet succeed in obtaining a stag or a bear. On the 28th of August we undertook an excursion to see the bear-trap, in which one of those animals had been caught two or three days before. The man who owned this trap lived on the road between the Tonkhanna and the Tobihanna, both of which flow into the Lehigh. He had appointed his house for our rendezvous, where we saw the skin of the bear, lately taken, nailed up against the gable end to dry. The saw-mill of our bear-catcher lay in a rude valley, to the south-west of the road. We came to this saw-mill, in a solitary valley, on the Tonkhanna, which rushes, roaring and foaming over rocks covered with black moss, between old broken pines, in a true primeval wilderness. In this retreat for bears, prickly smilax, brambles, and other thorny plants, tear the strongest hunting dress, and leather alone resists these enemies. At every step we had to clamber over fallen trunks of trees, to the injury of our shins, which were almost always bleeding. We found our guide, who, though it poured of rain, took his rifle, and went before, to lead us to the bear-trap. |