The Boy Hunters | Page 3

He was, in fact, a
ci-devant corporal of chasseurs. Landi had been his colonel. The rest
you will easily guess. He had followed his old leader to America, and
was now his man for everything. It was not often that you could see the
naturalist without also seeing Hugot's great moustachios close by his
elbow. It would have killed Hugot to have been separated for any
length of time from his old colonel.
Of course Hugot accompanied his master in all his hunting expeditions.
So, too, did the boys, as soon as they were able to sit upon a horse. On
these occasions the house would be shut up, for there was no
housekeeper nor any other domestic about the establishment. It would
remain thus for days, sometimes for weeks together--for the naturalist
with his party often made distant excursions into the surrounding
forests. They would return laden with spoils--skins of birds and beasts,
plants, and rare geological specimens. Then whole days would be spent
in the arrangement of these new acquisitions. Thus did Landi and his
family pass their time.

Hugot was cook, valet, groom, butler, and errand boy. I have already
stated that no other domestic, male or female, lived in the house: Hugot,
therefore, was chambermaid as well. His manifold occupations,
however, were not so difficult to fulfil as might at first appear. The
Colonel was a man of simple habits. He had learned these when a
soldier, and he brought up his sons to live like himself. He ate plain
food, drank only water, and slept upon a camp-bed with a buffalo-robe
and a blanket. A laundress in Point Coupee kept the linen clean; and
Hugot was not near so busy with house affairs as you might suppose.
He made daily journeys to the village--to the market, and the
post-office, from which he often brought letters, many of them with
large seals, and the arms of a prince upon them! Sometimes, too, after a
steamer had called at the landing, parcels arrived containing
books--scientific books they were--or curious instruments.
Notwithstanding all this, there was nothing mysterious about the life of
the hunter-naturalist. He was no misanthrope. He often visited the
village, and would gossip with old hunters and others who lived there.
The villagers knew him as the "old Colonel," and respected him. They
only wondered at his tastes as a naturalist, which to them seemed
strange. They wondered, too, how he managed to keep house without a
maid-servant. But the Colonel did not trouble his head about their
conjectures. He only laughed at their curious inquiries, and remained
on as good terms as ever. His boys, too, as they grew up became great
favourites with all. They were the best shots of their age, could ride a
horse with any, could swim the Mississippi, paddle a canoe, fling a
lasso, or spear a catfish, as though they had been full-grown men. They
were, in fact, boy-men; and as such were regarded by the simple
villagers, who instinctively felt the superiority which education and
training had given to these youths over their own uneducated minds.
The boys, notwithstanding these advantages, were affable with the
villagers; hence the respect in which they were universally held.
None of his neighbours ever visited the Colonel, except on matters of
business. Indeed he had no visitors of any sort, if we except one or two
of his former military associates, who lived at New Orleans, and came
up to his house about once a-year to talk over old times, and taste his
venison. On such occasions "Napoleon le Grand" was of course the

main subject of conversation. Like all old soldiers of the Empire, Landi
worshipped Napoleon; but there was one of the Bonaparte family for
whom the naturalist entertained a still higher feeling of regard,
amounting in fact to sincere friendship. This was Charles Lucien,
prince of Musignano.
Not all the Bonapartes have been bad. Some of the members of that
remarkable family have given evidence to the world that they were the
possessors of noble virtue. The quiet researches of the Prince of
Musignano as a student of natural history, may be looked upon as so
many conquests in the kingdom of Nature; and though they have been
eclipsed by the more brilliant and sanguinary triumphs of the Emperor,
yet do they far more entitle him to the gratitude and respect of men. He
was the true hero of the hunter-naturalist Landi.
For many years did Colonel Landi lead the life we have described. An
event at length happened that was near proving fatal to him. He had
been wounded in the leg during his campaigns in the Peninsula. A fall
from his horse reopened this wound, and amputation became necessary.
This saved his life, but he could no longer