112 THE GREAT HERO 5. 



Hampshire, was described to me as a great curiositj. Manj 

 of their breeding-places occur in both Carolinas, chiefly in 

 the vicinitj of the sea. In the lower parts of New Jersey, 

 they have also their favourite places for building, and rearing 

 their young. These are generally in the gloomy solitudes 

 of the tallest cedar swamps, where, if unmolested, they con- 

 tinue annually to breed for many years. These swamps 

 tre from half a mile to a mile in breadth, and sometimes 

 five or six in length, and appear as if they occupied the 

 former channel of some choked-up river, stream, lake, or 

 arm of the sea. The appearance they present to a stranger 

 is singular — a front of tall and perfectly straight trunks, 

 rising to the height of fifty or sixty feet, without a limb, 

 and crowded in every direction, their tops so closely woven 

 together as to shut out the day, spreading the gloom of a 

 perpetual twilight below. On a nearer approach, they are 

 found to rise out of the water, which, from the impregnation 

 df the fallen leaves and roots of the cedars, is of the colour 

 of brandy. Amidst this bottom of congregated springs, the 

 ruins of the former forest lie piled in every state of con- 

 fusion. The roots, prostrate logs, and, in many places, the 

 irater, are covered with green, mantling moss, while an 

 undergrowth of laurel, fifteen or twenty feet high, intersects 

 every opening so completely, as to render a passage through 

 laborious and harassing beyond description ; at every step, 

 you cither sink to the knees, clamber over fallen timber, 

 vqueeie yourself throagh between the stubborn laurels, or 



