The easiest way to penetrate the forest was to follow the "buffalo paths," which the settlers usually adopted for their own bridle trails, and finally cut out and made into roads.

Game swarmed.
There were multitudes of swans, geese, and ducks on the river; turkeys and the small furred beasts, such as coons, abounded.

Big game was almost as plentiful.

Colonel Fleming shot, for the subsistence of himself and his party, many buffalo, bear, and deer, and some elk.

His attention was drawn by the great flocks of parroquets, which appeared even in winter, and by the big, boldly colored, ivory-billed woodpeckers--birds which have long drawn back to the most remote swamps of the hot Gulf-coast, fleeing before man precisely as the buffalo and elk have fled.
Like all similar parties he suffered annoyance from the horses straying.
He lost much time in hunting up the strayed beasts, and frequently had to pay the settlers for helping find them.