The party found that the fire had made but slow progress against the wind, which now blew half a gale. Arming themselves with blazing brands, they proceeded to the upper part of the piece, and fired the mass of dry material in fifteen or twenty different places. An enormous volume of smoke and flame instantly arose, and swept down before the wind, presenting a truly magnificent spectacle. In clearing land they are not particular to cut every tree. Sometimes there will be an old dead pine full of pitch, that, as it makes no shade to hurt a crop, and draws nothing from the soil, they let it alone. At other times they make what they call a _drive_; they cut a number of trees partly off, and then, picking out a very large one, fall it on the rest, and thus drive them all down together,--as boys set up a row of bricks, and starting one throw down the whole,--which saves them a great deal of cutting. A good many trees are broken off in these drives twenty or thirty feet from the ground, and, if they stand any time in hot weather, the pitch will fry out of them, and run in little yellow threads to the ground. There were a great many trees in this lot that had been standing a good while, and were full of pitch. It was now twilight, and as the flame struck one of these trees the little threads of pitch flashed like powder, and the flame, following them up the body of the tree with a rush and roar, spouted from the top in grand style, amid the loud shouts of the performers. At times there would be a great dry stub as big as a hogshead, and the fire, getting in at the roots, would run up the inside, and roar and blaze from the top like a dozen chimneys.