ARROW-FISHING. 55 
If you will descend with me from slightly broken 
ground through which we lave been riding, covered 
with forest trees singularly choked up with undergrowth, 
to an expanse of country beautifully open between the 
trees, the limbs of which start out from the trunk some 
thirty feet above the ground, you will find at your feet 
an herbage that is luxuriant, but scanty ; high over your 
head, upon the trees, you will perceive @ Zine, marking 
what has evidently been an overflow of water; you can 
trace the beautiful level upon the trunks of the trees, as 
far as the eye can reach. 
It is in the fall of the year, and a squirrel drops an 
acorn upon your shoulder, and about your feet are the 
sharp-cut tracks of the nimble deer. You are standing 
*n the centre of what is called, by hunters, a “ dry 
lake.” 
As the warm air of April favors the opening flowers 
of spring, the waters of the Mississippi, increased by 
the melting snows of the North, swell within its low 
banks, and rush in a thousand streams back into the 
swamps and lowlands that lie upon its borders; the tor- 
rent sweeps along into the very reservoir in which we 
stand, and the waters swell upwards until they find a 
level with the fountain itself. Thus is formed the ar- 
row-fisher’s lake. 
The brawny oak, the graceful pecan, the tall poplar, 
and delicate beech spring from its surface in a thousand 
tangled limbs, looking more beautiful, yet most unnat- 
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