Even in the scene we have been describing, ten or twelve humble
habitations were distributed among the recent clearings on the sides of
the mountains, and in situations too remote to promise much security
against any sudden inroad of the common enemy.
For general protection, in cases of the last extremity, however, a
stockaded dwelling, not unlike that which we have had occasion to
describe in our earlier pages, stood in a convenient spot near the
hamlet. Its defences were stronger and more elaborate than usual, the
pickets being furnished with flanking block-houses; and, in other
respects, the building bore the aspect of a work equal to any resistance
that might be required in the warfare of those regions. The ordinary
habitation of the priest was within its gates; and hither most of the
sick were timely conveyed, in order to anticipate the necessity of
removals at more inconvenient moments.
It is scarcely necessary to tell the American, that heavy wooden fences
subdivided the whole of this little landscape into inclosures of some
eight or ten acres in extent; that, here and there, cattle and flocks were
grazing without herdsmen or shepherds, and that, while the fields nearest
to the dwellings were beginning to assume the appearance of a careful and
improved husbandry, those more remote became gradually wilder and less
cultivated, until the half-reclaimed openings, with their blackened stubs
and barked trees, were blended with the gloom of the living forest.
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