186 A COTTON PLANTATION. 
snakes ; but by and by, as I drew nearer, 
the truth of the matter began to break upon 
me. A man was approaching, and when 
we met I asked him what was making that 
noise yonder. “Frogs,” he said. At an- 
other time, in the flat-woods of Port Orange 
(1 hope I am not taxing my reader’s credu- 
lity too far, or making myself out a man of 
too imaginative an ear), I heard the bleating 
of sheep. Busy with other things, I did not 
stop to reflect that it was impossible there 
should be sheep in that quarter, and the 
occurrence had quite passed out of my 
mind when, one day, a cracker, talking about 
frogs, happened to say, “ Yes, and we have 
one kind that makes a noise exactly like the 
bleating of sheep.” That, without question, 
was what I had heard in the flat-woods. But 
this frog in the sugar-cane swamp was the 
same fellow that on summer evenings, ever 
and ever so many years ago, in sonorous bass 
that could be heard a quarter of a mile away, 
used to call from Reuben Loud’s pond, 
“Pull him in! Pull him in!” or some- 
times (the inconsistent amphibian), “ Jug 0’ 
rum! Jug o’ rum!” 
I dismounted from my perch at last, and 
