SWAMP SKETCHES. 57 



as if that could protect me from such an 

 assailant. I remember that at this point I 

 thought of my wanderings on Okechobee and 

 recalled seeing a will-o-the-wisp play its 

 pranks on a marsh of the Satilla. 



But I might write volumes and yet not de- 

 scribe a Southern swamp. From the nature 

 of things explorers of these awful mazes are 

 few and timid. I have said nothing of the 

 billions upon billions of musquitoes, nothing 

 of the malaria, and I shall not because I was 

 fortified against both, and they did not 

 trouble me. I came out of the jungle im- 

 pressed with only its grandeur of effect, and 

 with the suggestions its strange features had 

 engendered in my imagination. 



No sky ever looked purer or sweeter, no 

 sea brighter, no air ever filled me with such 

 a sense of freshness. Indeed I came forth 

 upon my white sand-bar as one might come 

 out of a tomb into a blooming garden. 



The boatmen were asleep upon a heap of 

 grass covered with a sail, and the little smack 

 was tossing at anchor not more than a stone's 

 throw out from the surf line. Far out on 

 the horizon a ship with all sails set was bowl- 

 ing along, and there was a melody in my 

 ears like the low singing of a multitude of 

 voices. I lay down upon the sand and 

 slept. 



