180 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



I hesitated, and a shudder came over me. The 

 leap, as regarded distance, was a trifling one, but it 

 was over an almost bottomless chasm full of the foulest 

 mud, on which the mocassin snakes, the deadliest of 

 the American reptiles, were swarming. 



II Come on ! " 



Necessity lent me strength, and pressing my left 

 foot firmly against the log on which I was standing, 

 and which was each moment sinking with our weight 

 deeper into the soft slimy ground, I sprang across. 

 Carleton followed me. 



" Well done ! " cried the old man. " Courage, and 

 a couple more such leaps and we shall be getting over 

 the worst of it." 



"VVe pushed on, steadily but slowly, never setting 

 our foot on a log till we had ascertained its solidity 

 with the butts of our guns. The cypress swamp ex- 

 tended four or five miles along the shores of the 

 creek : it was a deep lake of black mud, covered over 

 and disguised by a deceitful bright -green veil of 

 creeping plants and mosses, which had spread them- 

 selves in their rank luxuriance over its whole surface, 

 and over the branches and trunks of trees scattered 

 about the swamp. These latter were not placed with 

 any very great regularity, but had yet been evidently 

 arranged by the hand of man. 



" There seems to have been a sort of path made 

 here," said I to our guide, "for " 



" Silence! " interrupted he, in a low tone; "silence, 



