BEAR WITH SPECTACLES. 121 



quite a habit of stopping and looking at 

 you through his queer spectacles as long 

 as you are in sight. He looks to be a sort 

 of second-hand bear, his shaggy, faded, 

 dirty coat of hair looking as if he had been 

 stuffed, like an old sofa, with the stuffing 

 coming out a very second-hand appear- 

 ance, to be sure. 



Now, as I have always had a fondness 

 for skins having slept on them and under 

 them all my life, making both bed and car- 

 pet of them I very much wanted a skin 

 of this queer marsh bear which the poor 

 negroes both adore and dread as a sort of 

 devil. But, as no one liked him well enough 

 to kill him, I must do it myself; and with 

 this object, along with my duty to describe 

 the drowning plantations, I left New Or- 

 leans with Colonel Bloom, two good guns, 

 and something to eat and to drink, and 

 swept down the great river to the landing 

 in the outer edge of the timber belt. 



And how strange this landing! As a 

 rule you have to climb up to the shore from 



