XIV 



To most eyes, no doubt, the prospect would have 

 seemed desolate, even forbidding. A single track of 

 railroad lay under my feet, while down and away in 

 front of me stretched the Bear Swamp, the largest, 

 least-trod area of primeval swamp in southern New 

 Jersey. 



To me it was neither desolate nor forbidding, be- 

 cause I knew it well, its gloomy depths, its silent 

 streams, its hollow stumps, its trails, and its haunting 

 mysteries. Yet I had never crossed its borders. I was 

 born within its shadows, close enough to smell the 

 magnolias of the margin, and had lived my first ten 

 years only a little farther off ; but not till now, after 

 twice ten years of absence, had I stood here ready 



189 



