i88 



THE ALLMNI JOURNAL. 



while others appear only upon the an- 

 nual rise, — for after the water has reach- 

 ed a certain point, and the banks begin 

 to be overflowed, every additional foot 

 of rise means the inundation of hundreds 

 of square miles of low land. The high- 

 er, or perhaps it would be more express- 

 ive to say the less low, of these lands, 

 are covered with forests, those species 

 which can best endure the inundation 

 successively giving place to the others as 

 we ascend, so that to the practiced eye of 

 the forester, the altitude of a given spot 

 can be determined within a very few feet 

 by the determination of its trees. The 

 lower lands — ' ' savannahs " — are covered 

 with grass and sedge interspersed with 

 clumps of shrubbery, while still lower 

 they are inhabited by partial or complete 

 aquatics. Over such a savannah we 

 have hunted dry-shod upon one day, but 

 found it upon the following covered by 

 from six to eighteen inches of water, 

 through which the serpents, in incredi- 

 ble numbers, scurried in all directions as 

 we waded about among the bushes. The 

 streams which run through these marsh- 

 es, or rather stand among them, for there 

 is scarcely any motion of the water per- 

 ceptible, ate astonishingly deep, even 

 during the dry season. Yet from the 

 greatest depths aquatic grasses, sedges 

 and other plants will frequently arise so 

 thickly as to convert the surface into an 

 apparent meadow and to render the 

 passage of a canoe through them ex- 

 tremely difficult or even impossible. In 

 such cases the members of our surveying 

 party resorted to the expedient of attach- 

 ing boards to their feet, after the manner 

 of snow shoes, slipping along over the 

 surface of the vegetation and pushing 

 the canoe between them until the open 

 water was again reached. The succes- 

 sion of these swamps and lagoons beyond 

 and among the elevated spots standing 

 back from the river appears intermidable 



to those who endeavor to pass them, and 

 one hill after another is reached only to 

 discover beyond a region to cross which 

 will tax to the uttermost the ingenuity 

 and endurance of the party. Yet it 

 must not be considered that the country, 

 as a whole, is for this reason either im- 

 passible or uninhabitable. Per aspera ad 

 as/ra .' Beyond all these difficulties 

 stand the smiling mountains, with cool 

 and invigorating climate, pure and beau- 

 tiful streams, in all probability an almost 

 complete freedom from the insect pests 

 of the low land, with noble forests and 

 lovely flowers, and a paradise of birds, 

 among which those of gorgeous plumage 

 are abundantly varied by others of 

 charming song, and with instances not 

 altogether lacking in which both these 

 charms are combined in the same indi- 

 vidual. All that is needed is to estab- 

 lish a comfortable route from the river- 

 side in order to open up to the tourist or 

 to the settler a region with few equals, 

 either for natural charms or natural 

 wealth, upon the Atlantic coast. Such 

 a route was apparently found leading 

 backward from the little village of Santa 

 Catalina by Messrs. Parker, Adams, 

 Squires and myself. Although time did 

 not permit of our pursuing this route to 

 reach the mountains, Messrs. Grant, 

 Adams and Halberson are at present en- 

 gaged in such an attempt. 



Near the coast there are very large 

 tracts which are inundated at each flood- 

 tide and left bare and muddy by the ebb. 

 In these regions the houses which exist 

 are raised above the tidal mud and con- 

 nected by elevated log or plank walks, 

 nothing but water being in sight when 

 the tide is up. In spite of the double in- 

 undation each day, these tracts are 

 heavily forested, apparently, more than 

 half of the individual trees and shrubs 

 in the region which I visited near Caria- 

 pa being palms. Even at ebb-tide these 



