128 ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN’S. 
enormously at the base, rose straight and 
branchless into the air. Dead trees, one 
might have said,—light-colored, appar- 
ently with no bark to cover them; but if I 
glanced up, I saw that each bore at the top 
a scanty head of branches just now putting 
forth fresh green leaves, while long funereal 
streamers of dark Spanish moss hung thickly 
from every bough. 
I am not sure how long I could have 
stayed in such a spot, if I had not been able 
to look now and then through the branches 
of the under-woods out upon the sunny lake. 
Swallows innumerable were playing over 
the water, many of them soaring so high as 
to be all but invisible. Wise and happy 
birds, lovers of sunlight and air. They 
would never be found in a cypress swamp. 
Along the shore, in a weedy shallow, the 
peaceful dabchicks were feeding. Far off 
on a post toward the middle of the lake 
stood a cormorant. But I could not keep 
my eyes long at once in that direction. The 
dismal swamp had me under its spell, and 
meanwhile the patient buzzards looked at 
me. “Itis almost time,” they said; “the 
fever will do its work,’ — and I began to 
