A VOYAGE IN THE DARK 



We passed many new houses of the 

 muskrats, who are building close to the 

 channel this year in prophecy of con- 

 tinued low water. But muskrats are 

 not infallible prophets, and sometimes 

 suffer therefor in starvation or drowning. 

 The labor of the night-workers was sus- 

 pended in the glare of the August after- 

 noon, and their houses were as silent as 

 if deserted, though we doubted not there 

 were happy households inside them, un- 

 troubled by dreams of famine or del- 

 uge, or possibly of the unmercifulness of 

 man, though that seems an abiding ter- 

 ror with our lesser brethren. Winter 

 before last the marshes were frozen to 

 the bottom, blockading the muskrats in 

 their houses, where entire families per- 

 ished miserably after being starved to 

 cannibalism. Some dug out through 

 the house roofs, and wandered far across 

 the desolate wintry fields in search of 

 food. Yet nature, indifferent to all 

 fates, has so fostered them since that 

 direful season that the marshy shores 

 are populous again with sedge-thatched 

 houses. 



As we neared our home port we met 

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