A Thousand-Mile Walk 



stumps fall off and disappear as they become 

 old, and the trunk becomes smooth as if turned 

 in a lathe. 



After some hours in this charming forest I 

 started on the return journey before night, 

 on account of the difficulties of the swamp and 

 the brier patch. On leaving the palmettos and 

 entering the vine-tangled, half-submerged for 

 est I sought long and carefully, but in vain, for 

 the trail, for I had drifted about too incau 

 tiously in search of plants. But, recollecting 

 the direction that I had followed in the morn 

 ing, I took a compass bearing and started to 

 penetrate the swamp in a direct line. 



Of course I had a sore weary time, pushing 

 through the tanglement of falling, standing, and 

 half-fallen trees and bushes, to say nothing of 

 knotted vines as remarkable for their efficient 

 army of interlocking and lancing prickers as for 

 their length and the number of their blossoms. 

 But these were not my greatest obstacles, nor 

 yet the pools and lagoons full of dead leaves 

 and alligators. It was the army of cat-briers 

 f 118 1 



