SUMMER RETREAT IN ARKANSAS. 29 
The huge trees seem immortal, their reots look as 
if they struck to the centre of the earth, while the 
gnarled limbs reach out to the clouds Here and there 
may be seen one of these lordly specimens of vegetation, 
furrowed by the lightning; from its top to the base you 
can trace the subtle fluid in its descent, and see where 
it shattered off the gigantic limb, or turned aside from 
slight inequality in the bark. 
These stricken trees, no longer able to repel the nu- 
merous parasites that surround them, soon become fes- 
tooned with wreathes and flowers; while the damp air 
engenders on living tree and dead, like funereal drapery, 
the pendant moss, which waves in every breeze and seems 
to cover the whole scene with the gloom of the grave. 
Rising out of this forest, for ten square miles, is the 
dense cane-brake, that bears the name of ‘“ Satan’s Sum- 
mer Retreat ;” it is formed by a space of ground where, 3 
seemingly, from its superiority of soil, more delicate 
vegetation than that which surrounds it, has usurped 
the empire. Here the reed, which the disciple of Izaak 
Walton plays over the northern streams like a wand, 
grows into a delicate mast—springing with the prodi- 
gality of grass from the rich alluvium that gives it sus- 
tenance, and tapering from its roots to the height of 
twenty or thirty feet, it there mingles in compact and 
luxuriant confusion its long leaves. 
A portion of this brake is interwoven with vines of 
all descriptions, which makes it so thick that it is al- 
