the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gambolling
on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale, and athletic
man, dressed in a homespun hunting-shirt, bare-legged and moccasined,
carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had
proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped
would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to shew me his skill.
The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with sixhundred
thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod. We
moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous that
it was unnecessary to go after them. BOON pointed to one of these animals
which had observed us, and was crouched on a branch about fifty
places distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the ball should hit.
He raised his piece gradually, until the bead (that being the name given
by the Kentuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought to a line with
the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like report resounded
through the woods and along the hills, in repeated echoes. Judge of my
surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of the bark
immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters, the concussion
produced by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling
through the air, as if it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder
magazine. BOON kept up his firing, and, before many hours had elapsed,
we had procured as many squirrels as we wished; for you must know,
kind reader, that to load a rifle requires only a moment, and that if it
is wiped once after each shot, it will do duty for hours. Since that first
interview with our veteran BOON, I have seen many other individuals
perform the same feat.
The snuffing of a candle with a ball, I first had an opportunity of
seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon-roost,
to which I had previously made a visit. I heard many reports of guns
during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be those of
rifles, I went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the
place, I was welcomed by a dozen of tall stout men, who told me they
were exercising, for the purpose of enabling them to shoot under night at
the reflected light from the eyes of a deer or wolf, by torch-light, of
which I shall give you an account somewhere else. A fire was blazing
near, the smoke of which rose curling among the thick foliage of the
trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a
burning candle, as if intended for an offering to the goddess of night, but
which in reality was only fifty yards from the spot on which we all stood.
One man was within a few yards of it, to watch the effects of the shots,
as well as to light the candle should it chance to go out, or to replace it
should the shot cut it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some
never hit either the snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a
loud laugh ; while others actually snuffed the candle without putting it
out, and were recompensed for their dexterity by numerous hurrahs.
One of them, who was particularly expert, was very fortunate, and snuffed
the candle three times out of seven, whilst all the other shots either
put out the candle, or cut it immediately under the light.
Of the feats performed by the Kentuckians with the rifle, I could
say more than might be expedient on the present occasion. In every
thinly peopled portion of the State, it is rare to meet one without a gun
of that description, as well as a tomahawk. By way of recreation, they
often cut off a piece of the bark of a tree, make a target of it, using a
little powder wetted with water or saliva, for the bull's eye, and shoot into
the mark all the balls they have about them, picking them out of the
wood again.
After what I have said, you may easily imagine with what ease a
Kentuckian procures game, or dispatches an enemy, more especially when
I tell you that every one in the State is accustomed to handle the rifle
from the time when he is first able to shoulder it until near the close of
his career. That murderous weapon is the means of procuring them subsistence
during all their wild and extensive rambles, and is the source of
their principal sports and pleasures.