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History of Louisisana by Le Page Du Pratz

L >> Le Page Du Pratz >> History of Louisisana




The Tiger is not above a foot and a half high, and long in proportion:
his hair is somewhat of a bright bay colour, and he is brisk as all
tigers naturally are. His flesh when boiled tastes like veal, only it
is not so insipid. There are very few of them to be seen; I never saw
but two near my settlement; and I have great reason to think that it
was the same beast I saw both times. The first time he laid hold of my
dog, who barked and howled; but upon my running towards him the {250}
tiger left him. The next time he seized a pig; but this I likewise
rescued, and his claws had gone no deeper than the fat. This animal is
not more carnivorous than fearful; he flies at the sight of a man, and
makes off with greater speed, if you shout and halloo as he runs.

[Illustration: TOP: _Wild Cat_--MIDDLE: _Opossum_--BOTTOM: _Skunk_]

The Cat-a-mount is a kind of wild cat, as high as the tiger, but not
so thick, and his skin is extremely beautiful. He is a great destroyer
of poultry, but fortunately his species is rare.

{251} Foxes are so numerous, that upon the woody heights you
frequently see nothing but their holes. As the woods afford them
plenty of game, they do not molest the poultry, which are always
allowed to run at large. The foxes are exactly shaped like ours, but
their skin is much more beautiful. Their hair is fine and thick, of a
deep brown colour, and over this rise several long silver-coloured
hairs, which have a fine effect.

The Wild Cat has been improperly so called by the first French
settlers in Louisiana; for it has nothing of the cat but its nimble
activity, and rather resembles a monkey. It is not above eight or ten
inches high, and about fifteen long. Its head is like that of a fox;
it has long toes, but very short claws, not made for seizing game;
accordingly it lives upon fruit, bread, and other such things. This
animal may be tamed, and then becomes very frolicksome and full of
tricks. The hair of those that are tame is grey; but of the wild is
reddish; neither of them is so beautiful as that of the fox; it grows
very fat, and its flesh is good to eat. I shall not describe the real
wild cat, as it is entirely like ours.

The Rabbit is extremely common over all Louisiana; it is particular in
this, that its pile is like that of the hare, and it never burrows.
Its flesh is white and delicate, and has the usual taste, without any
rankness. There is no other kind of rabbit or hare, if you please to
call it, in all the colony, than that above described.

The Wood-Rat has the head and tail of a common rat, but has the bulk
and length of a cat. Its legs are short, its paws long, and its toes
are armed with claws: its tail is almost without hair, which serves
for hooking itself to any thing; for when you take hold of it by that
part, it immediately twists itself round your finger. Its pile is
grey, and though very fine, yet is never smooth. The women among the
natives spin it and dye it red. It hunts by night, and makes war upon
the poultry, only sucking their blood and leaving their flesh. It is
very rare to see any creature walk so slow; and I have often catched
them when walking my ordinary pace. When he sees himself upon the
point of being caught, instinct prompts him to counterfeit being dead;
and in this he perseveres with such {252} constancy, that though laid
on a hot gridiron, he will not make the least sign of life. He never
moves, unless the person go to a distance or hide himself, in which
case he endeavors as fast as possible to escape into some hole or
bush.

When the she-one is about to litter, she chooses a place in the thick
bushes at the foot of a tree, after which she and the male crop a
great deal of fine dry grass, which is loaded upon her belly, and then
the male drags her and her burden by the tail to the littering-place.
She never quits her young a moment; but when she is obliged to change
her lodging, carries them with her in a pouch or double skin that
wraps round her belly, and there they may sleep or suck at their ease.
The two sides of this pouch lap so close that the joining can hardly
be observed; nor can they be separated without tearing the skin. If
the she-one be caught carrying her young thus with her, she will
suffer herself to be roasted alive, without the least sign of life,
rather than open the pouch and expose her young ones. The flesh of
this animal is very good, and tastes somewhat like that of a sucking
pig, when it is first broiled, and afterwards roasted on the spit.

The Pole-cat or Skunk is about the size of a kitten eight months old.
The male is of a beautiful black, but the female has rings of white
intermixed with the black. Its ear and its paw are like that of a
mouse, and it has a very lively eye. I suppose it lives upon fruits
and seeds. It is most justly called the Stinking Beast, for its odour
is so strong, that it may be pursued upon the track twenty-four hours
after it has passed. It goes very slow, and when the hunter approaches
it, it squirts out, far and wide such a stinking urine, that neither
man nor beast can hardly approach it. A drop of this creature's blood,
and probably some of its urine, having one day fallen upon my coat
when I was hunting, I was obliged as fast as possible to go home and
change my cloaths; and before I, could use my coat, it was scoured and
exposed for several days to the dew.

The Squirrels of Louisiana are like those of France, excepting one
kind, which are called Flying-Squirrels, because they leap from one
tree to another, though the distance between them be twenty-five or
thirty feet. It is about the size of a {253} rat, and of a deep
ash-colour. Its two fore-legs are joined to its two hind-legs by two
membranes, so that when it leaps it seems to fly, though it always
leaps somewhat downwards. This animal may be very easily tamed; but
even then it is best to chain it. There is another sort, not much
bigger than a mouse, and of a bright bay-colour. These are so familiar
that they will come out of the woods, will enter the houses, and sit
within two yards of the people of the house, if they do not make any
motion; and there they will feed on any maiz within their reach. I
never was so well diverted in my life with the frolics of any animal,
as I have been with the vivacity and attitudes of this little
squirrel.

The Porcupine is large and fine of this kind; but as he lives only
upon fruit, and loves cold, is most common about the river Illinois,
where the climate is somewhat cold, and there is plenty of wild
fruits. The skin, when stripped of the quills, is white and brown. The
natives dye part of the white, yellow and red, and the brown they dye
black. They have likewise the art of splitting the skin, and applying
it to many curious works, particularly to trim the edges of their
deer-skin, and to line small bark-boxes, which are very neat.

The Hedge-hog of Louisiana is in every respect the same with that of
Europe.

I shall not enlarge upon the Beavers, which are universally known,
from the many descriptions we have of them.

The Otters are the same with those of France, and there are but few of
them to be seen.

Some Turtle are seen in this country; but very rarely. In the many
hundred leagues of country that I have passed over, I have hardly seen
above a hundred.

Frogs are very common, especially in Lower Louisiana, notwithstanding
the great number of snakes that destroy them. There are some that grow
very large, sometimes above a foot and a half long, and astonish
strangers at first by their croaking especially if they are in a
hollow tree.

The Crocodile is very common in the river Missisippi. Although this
amphibious animal be almost as well known as {254} those I have just
mentioned, I cannot however omit taking some notice of it. Without
troubling the reader with a description of it, which he will meet with
every where, I shall observe that it shuns the banks of the river
frequented by men. It lays its eggs in the months of May, when the sun
is already hot in that country, and it deposits them in the most
concealed place it can find among grass exposed to the heats of the
south. The eggs are about the size of those of a goose, but longer in
proportion. Upon breaking them you will find hardly any thing but
white, the yolk being about the size of that of a young hen. I never
saw any that were new hatched. The smallest I ever met with, which I
concluded to be about three months old, was as long as a middle-sized
eel, and an inch and a half thick. I have killed one nineteen feet
long, and three feet and a half in its greatest breadth. A friend of
mine killed one twenty-two feet long, and the legs of both these,
which on land seemed to move with great difficulty, were not above a
foot in length. But however sluggish they be on land, in the water
they move with great agility.

This animal has his body always covered with slime, which is the case
with all fishes that live in muddy waters. When he comes on shore his
track is covered with that slime, as his belly trails on the ground,
and this renders the earth very slippery in that part, especially as
he returns by the same path to the water. He never hunts the fish upon
which he subsists; but places himself in ambuscade, and catches them
as they pass. For that purpose he digs a hole in the bank of the
river, below the surface of the water, where the current is strong,
having a small entrance, but large enough within to turn himself round
in. The fish, which are fatigued with the strong current, are glad to
get into the smooth water in that corner, and there they are
immediately seized by the crocodile.

I shall not contradict the accounts of venerable antiquity about the
crocodiles of the Nile, who fall upon men and devour them; who cross
the roads, and make a slippery path upon them to trip passengers, and
make them slide into the river; who counterfeit the voice of an
infant, to draw children into their snares; neither shall I contradict
the travellers who have {255} confirmed those stories from mere
hearsays. But as I profess to speak the truth, and to advance nothing
but what I am certain of from my own knowledge, I may safely affirm
that the crocodiles of Louisiana are doubtless of another species than
those of other countries. In fact, I never heard them imitate the
cries of an infant, nor is it at all probable that they can
counterfeit them. Their voice is as strong as that of a bull. It is
true they attack men in the water, but never on land, where they are
not at all formidable. Besides, there are nations that in great part
subsist upon this animal, which is hunted out by the fathers and
mothers, and killed by the children. What can we then believe of those
stories that have been told us of the crocodile? I myself killed all
that ever I met of them; and they are so much the less to be dreaded,
in that they can neither run nor rise up against a man. In the water
indeed, which is their favourite element, they are dangerous; but in
that case it is easy to guard against them.

The largest of all the reptiles of Louisiana, is the Rattle-Snake:
some of them have been seen fifteen inches thick, and long in
proportion; but this species is naturally shorter in proportion to
their thickness than the other kinds of serpents. This serpent gets
its name from several hollow knots at its tail, very thin and dry,
which make a rattling noise. These knots, though inserted into each
other, are yet quite detached, and only the first of them is fastened
to the skin. The number of the knots, it is said, marks the age of the
serpent, and I am much inclined to believe it; for as I have killed a
great number of them, I always observed, that the longer and thicker
the serpent was, it had the more knots. Its skin is almost black; but
the lower part of its belly is striped black and white.

As soon as it hears or sees a man, it rouses itself by shaking its
tail, which makes a rattling noise that may be heard at several paces
distance, and gives warning to the traveller to be upon his guard. It
is much to be dreaded when it coils itself up in a spiral line, for
then it may easily dart upon a man. It shuns the habitations of men,
and by a singular providence, wherever it retires to, there the herb
which cures its bite, is likewise to be found.

{256} [Illustration: TOP: _Alligator_--MIDDLE: _Rattle Snake_--BOTTOM:
_Green Snake_]

There are several other kinds of serpents to be seen here, some of
which resemble those of France, and attempt to slip into the
hen-houses to devour the eggs and new-hatched chickens. Others are
green, about two feet long, and not thicker than a goose-quill; they
frequent the meadows, and may be seen running over the spires of
grass, such is their lightness and nimbleness.

{257} Vipers are very rare in Lower Louisiana, as that reptile loves
stoney grounds. In the highlands they are now-and-then to met with,
and there they quite resemble ours.

Lizards are very common: there is a small kind of these that are
called Cameleons, because they change their colour according to that
of the place they pass over. [Footnote: When the Cameleon is angry, a
nerve rises arch-wise from his mouth to the middle of his throat; and
the skin which covers it is so stretched as to remain red, whatever
colour the rest of the body be. He never does any hurt, and always
runs away when observed.]

Among the spiders of Louisiana there is one kind that will appear very
extraordinary. It is as large, but rather longer than a pigeon's egg,
black with gold-coloured specks. Its claws are pierced through above
the joints. It does not carry its eggs like the rest, but encloses
them in a kind of cup covered with its silk. It lodges itself in a
kind of nut made of the same silk, and hung to the branches of the
trees. The web which this insect weaves is so strong, that it not only
stops birds, but cannot even be broken by men without a considerable
effort.

I never saw any Moles in Louisiana, nor heard of any being seen by
others.




CHAPTER VII.

_Of Birds, and Flying Insects_.


Birds are so very numerous in Louisiana, that if all the different
kinds of them were known, which is far from being the case at present,
the description of them alone would require an entire volume. I only
undertake the description of all those which have come within my
knowledge, the number of which, I am persuaded, will be sufficient to
satisfy the curious reader.

The Eagle, the king of the birds, is smaller than the eagle of the
Alps; but he is much more beautiful, being entirely white, excepting
only the tips of his wings, which are black. As he is also very rare,
this is another reason for heightening his value to the native, who
purchase at a great price the large {258} feathers of his wings, with
which they ornament the Calumet, or Symbol of Peace, as I have
elsewhere described.

When speaking of the king of birds, I shall take notice of the Wren,
called by the French Roitelet (Petty King) which is the same in
Louisiana as in France. The reason of its name in French will plainly
enough appear from the following history. A magistrate, no less
remarkable for his probity than for the rank he holds in the law,
assured me that, when he was at Sables d'Olonne in Poitou, on account
of an estate which he had in the neighbourhood of that city, he had
the curiosity to go and see a white eagle which was then brought from
America. After he had entered the house a wren was brought, and let
fly in the hall where the eagle was feeding. The wren perched upon a
beam, and was no sooner perceived by the eagle, than he left off
feeding, flew into a corner, and hung down his head. The little bird,
on the other hand, began to chirp and appear angry, and a moment after
flew upon the neck of the eagle, and pecked him with the greatest
fury, the eagle all the while hanging his head in a cowardly manner,
between his feet. The wren, after satisfying its animosity, returned
to the beam.

The Falcon, the Hawk, and the Tassel are the same as in France; but
the falcons are much more beautiful than ours.

The Carrion-Crow, or Turky Bustard, is of the size and shape of a
Turky-cock; his head is covered with red flesh, and his plumage is
black: he has a hooked beak, but his toes are armed with very small
talons, and are therefore very improper for seizing live game, which
indeed he does not chuse to attack, as his want of agility prevents
him from darting upon it with the rapidity of a bird of prey.
Accordingly he lives only upon the dead beasts that he happens to meet
with, and yet notwithstanding this kind of food he smells of musk.
Several people maintain, that the Carrion-Crow, or Carancro, is the
same with our Vulture. The Spaniards forbid the killing of it under
pain of corporal punishment; for as they do not use the whole carcase
of the buffaloes which they kill, those birds eat what they leave,
which otherwise, by rotting on the ground, would, according to them,
infect the air.

{259}

The Cormorant is shaped very much like a duck, but its plumage is
different and much more beautiful. This bird frequents the shores of
the sea and of lakes, but rarely appears in rivers. Its usual food is
fish; but as it is very voracious, it likewise eats dead flesh; and
this it can tear to pieces by means of a notch in its bill, which is
about the size of that of a duck.

The Swan of Louisiana are like those of France, only they are larger.
However, notwithstanding their bulk and their weight, they often rise
so high in the air, that they cannot be distinguished but by their
shrill cry. Their flesh is very good to eat, and their fat is a
specific against cold humours. The natives set a great value upon the
feathers of the Swan. Of the large ones they make the diadems of their
sovereigns, hats, and other ornaments; and they weave the small ones
as the peruke-makers weave hair, and make coverings of them for their
noble women. The young people of both sexes make tippets of the skin,
without stripping it of its down.

The Canada-Goose is a water-fowl, of the shape of a goose; but twice
as large and heavy. Its plumage is ash-coloured; its eyes are covered
with a black spot; its cries are different from those of a goose, and
shriller; its flesh is excellent.

The Pelican is so called from its large head, its large bill, and
above all for its large pouch, which hangs from its neck, and has
neither feather nor down. It fills this pouch with fish, which it
afterwards disgorges for the nourishment of its young. It never
removes from the shores of the sea, and is often killed by sailors for
the sake of the pouch, which when dried serves them as a purse for
their tobacco.

The Geese are the same with the wild geese of France. They abound upon
the shores of the sea and of lakes, but are rarely seen in rivers.

In this country there are three kinds of Ducks; first, the Indian
Ducks, so called because they came originally from that country. These
are almost entirely white, having but a very few grey feathers. On
each side of their head they have flesh of a more lively red than that
of the Turky-cock, and they are larger than our tame ducks. They are
as tame as those of {260} Europe, and their flesh when young is
delicate, and of a fine flavour. The Wild Ducks are fatter, more
delicate, and of better taste than those of France; but in other
respects they are entirely the same. For one you see in France you may
here count a thousand. The Perching-Ducks, or Carolina Summer-Ducks,
are somewhat larger than our teals. Their plumage is quite beautiful,
and so changeable that no painting can imitate it. Upon their head
they have a beautiful tuft of the most {261} lively colours, and their
red eyes appear like flames. The natives ornament their calumets or
pipes with the skin of their neck. Their flesh is very good, but when
it is too fat it tastes oily. These ducks are to be met with the whole
year round; they perch upon the branches of trees, which the others do
not, and it is from this they have their name.

[Illustration: TOP: _Pelican_--BOTTOM: _Wood Stock_ (on p. 260)]

The Teal are found in every season; and they differ nothing from those
of France but in having a finer relish.

The Divers of Louisiana are the same with those of France: they no
sooner see the fire in the pan, than they dive so suddenly that the
shot cannot touch them, and they are therefore called Lead-Eaters.

The Saw-bill has the inside of its beak indented like the edge of a
saw: it is said to live wholly upon shrimps, the shells of which it
can easily break.

The Crane is a very common water-fowl; it is larger than a turkey,
very lean, and of an excellent taste. It eats somewhat like beef, and
makes very good soup.

The Flamingo has only a little down upon its head; its plumage is
grey, and its flesh good.

The Spatula has its name from the form of its bill, which is about
seven or eight inches long, an inch broad towards the head, and two
inches and a half towards the extremity; it is not quite so large as a
wild goose; its thighs and legs are about the height of those of a
turkey. Its plumage is rose-coloured, the wings being brighter than
any other part. This is a water-fowl, and its flesh is very good.

The Heron of Louisiana is not in the least different from that of
Europe.

The Egret, or White Heron, is so called from tufts of feathers upon
the wings near the body, which hinder it from flying high; it is a
water-fowl with white plumage; but its flesh tastes very oily.

The Bec-croche, or Crook-bill, has indeed a crooked bill, with which
it seizes the cray-fish upon which it subsists. Its {262} flesh has
that taste, and is red. Its plumage is a whitish grey; and it is about
the size of a capon.

[Illustration: TOP: _Flying Squirrel_--MIDDLE: _Roseate
Spoon-bill_--BOTTOM: _Snowy Heron_]

The Indian Water-Hen, and the Green-Foot, are the same as in France.

The Hatchet-Bill is so called on account of its bill, which is red,
and formed like the edge of an ax. Its feet are also Of a beautiful
red, and it is therefore often called Red-Foot. As {263} it lives upon
shell-fish, it never removes from the sea-coast, but upon the approach
of a storm, which is always sure to follow its retiring into the
inland parts.

The King-Fisher excels ours in nothing but in the beauty of its
plumage, which is as various as the rainbow. This bird, it is well
known, goes always against the wind; but perhaps few people know that
it preserves the same property when it is dead. I myself hung a dead
one by a silk thread directly over a sea-compass, and I can declare it
as a fact, that the bill was always turned towards the wind.

The Sea-Lark and Sea-Snipe never quit the sea; their flesh may be eat,
as it has very little of the oily taste.

The Frigate-Bird is a large bird, which in the day-time keeps itself
in the air above the shore of the sea. It often rises very high,
probably for exercise; for it feeds upon fish, and every night retires
to the coast. It appears larger than it really is, as it is covered
with a great many feathers of a grey colour. Its wings are very long,
its tail forked, and it cuts the air with great swiftness.

The Draught-Bird is a large bird, not much unlike the Frigate-Bird, as
light, but not so swift. The under-part of its plumage is chequered
brown and white, but the upper-part is of greyish brown.

The Fool is of a yellowish colour, and about the size of a hen; it is
so called, because it will suffer a man to approach it so near as to
seize it with his hand: but even then it is too soon to cry victory;
for if the person who seizes it does not take the greatest precaution,
it will snap off his finger at one bite.

When those three last birds are observed to hover very low over the
shore, we may most certainly expect an approaching storm. On the other
hand, when the sailors see the Halcyons behind their vessel, they
expect and generally meet with fine weather for some days.

Since I have mentioned the Halcyon, I shall here describe it. It is a
small bird, about the size of a swallow, but its beak {264} is longer,
and its plumage is violet-coloured. It has two streaks of a yellowish
brown at the end of the feathers of its wings, which when it sits
appear upon its back. When we left Louisiana, near an hundred halcyons
followed our vessel for near three days: they kept at the distance of
about a stone-cast, and seemed to swim, yet I could never discover
that their feet were webbed, and was therefore greatly surprised. They
probably live upon the small insects that drop from the outside of the
vessel when sailing; for they now-and-then dived, and came up in the
same place. I have some suspicion that, by keeping in the wake of the
ship, they float after it without swimming; for when they happened to
be out of the wake of the ship, they were obliged to fly, in order to
come up with the ship again. This bird is said to build its nest of
the glutinous froth of the sea close upon the shore, and to launch it
when a land breeze arises, raising one of its wings in the form of a
sail, which receiving the wind, helps to carry it out to sea.

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Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

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