208 WILD SPOKT8 IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE DROWNED LANDS. 



" Seekest thou the plashy brink 



Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 

 Or where rocking billows rise and sink 



On the chafed ocean's side? 

 ****** 



" And soon thy toil shall end| 



Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest, 

 And scream among thy fellows reeds shall bend 



Soon o'er thy sheltered nest." 



BRYANT. 



FOR some time past, on the main land, we had been 

 noticing the signs of the departing year, and at Bonda 

 Key these indications became more marked and numer- 

 ous. The air had not lost its balsam or the leaf its color, 

 yet there were other shadows on nature's dial slighter in 

 appearance, but as true in reality. The ear missed the 

 whir in the evening air of those summer insects, whose 

 short lives had already terminated. The eye saw a clear- 

 ness in the atmosphere that brought objects several miles 

 distant apparently near at hand, and sometimes elevated 

 them about the horizon. Some birds that wore in sum- 

 mer the livery of the rainbow had apparelled themselves 



