128 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
tre of a small garden-spot and field, and had once been 
the residence of a squatter—but now deserted for causes 
unknown to us. The cabin was most pleasantly situated, 
and commanded a fine view of the river both up and 
down its channel. 
We reached this rude dwelling just as the sun was 
setting, and his disappearance behind the lowlands of 
the Mississippi, was indeed glorious. Refracted by the 
humidity of the atmosphere into a vast globe of fire, it 
seemed to be kindling up the Cypress trees that stretched 
out before us, into a light blaze, while the gathering 
clouds extended the conflagration far north and south, 
and carried it upwards into the heavens. Indeed, so 
glorious for a moment was the sight, that we almost 
fancied that another Pheeton was driving the chariot of 
the Sun, and that in’ its ungoverned course, its wheels 
were fired ; and the illusion was quite complete, when we 
heard the distant thunder echoing from those brilliant 
clouds, and saw the lightning, like silver arrows, flash 
across the crimson heavens. 
A moment more, and the sun was extinguished in 
the waters—all light disappeared, and the sudden dark- 
ness that follows sunset as you approach the’ tropics, 
was upon us. 
With the delightful consciousness of having already 
escaped the storm, we gathered round a pleasant blaze 
formed of dried twigs, kindled by flashing powder in the 
pan of an old-fashioned gun. In the. meantime, the 
