La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

—1685.] LIFE AT THE FORT. 897palisade. At the four corners of the house weremounted eight pieces of cannon, which, in theabsence of balls, were loaded with bags of bullets. 1Between the palisades and the stream lay a narrowstrip of marsh, the haunt of countless birds ; and ata little distance it deepened into pools full of fish.All the surrounding prairies swarmed with game,buffalo, deer, hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans,plover, snipe, and grouse. The river supplied thecolonists with turtles, and the bay with oysters. Ofthese last, they often found more than they wanted;for when in their excursions they shoved their logcanoes into the water, wading shoeless through thedeep, tenacious mud, the sharp shells would cuttheir feet like knives; "and what was worse," saysJoutel, "the salt water came into the gashes, andmade them smart atrociously."He sometimes amused himself with shooting alligators." I never spared them when I met them nearthe house. One day I killed an extremely large one,which was nearly four feet and a half in girth, andabout twenty feet long." He describes with accuracythat curious native of the southwestern plains, the"horned frog," which, deceived by its uninvitingappearance, he erroneously supposed to be venomous."We had some of our animals bitten by snakes;among the others, a bitch that had belonged to the1Compare Joutel with the Spanish account in Carta en que $e danoticia de un viaje hecho d la Bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacionque tenian ahi los Franceses; Coleccion de Varios Documentos, 26,