Drifting 177 



shut me up by remarking, " When this here 

 creek runs dry and you can walk over its 

 bottom, you'll larn a thing or two that ain't 

 down in your books yet, and ain't goin' to 

 be." The old man was right. I do not 

 believe in " king tortles," but there certainly 

 is " a thing or two" not yet in the books. 

 Stay ! How big do our snappers grow ? Is 

 the father of them all still hiding in the 

 channel of Crosswicks Creek ? 



A description in an old manuscript journal, 

 of the general aspeft of the country as seen 

 from the river, bears upon this subjefl of 

 strange wild beasts and monsters of the deep, 

 as well as on that of sunken trees that en- 

 dangered passing shallops. 



" As we pass up the river," this observant 

 writer records, " we are so shut in by the 

 great trees that grow even to the edge of the 

 water, that what may lye in the interior is 

 not to be known. That there be fertile 

 land, the Indians tell us, but their narrow 

 paths are toilsome to travel and there are 

 none [of these people] now that seem will- 

 ing to guide us. As we approached ffarns- 

 worth's the channel was often very close to 

 the shore, and at one time we were held by 



