188 THE DEVIL S SWAMP. [CHAP. xxxi. 



As we went back to the house, over the high 

 ground, we saw three kinds of squirrels and many 

 birds. So skilful was my companion with his rifle, 

 that he brought down every bird which came within 

 shot owls, rice-birds, woodpeckers, and jays that 

 I might examine their plumage. I admired a beauti 

 ful cluster of the flowers and fruit of the red maple, 

 about twenty feet above our heads. He offered to 

 pick them for me, and, without delay, took aim so 

 dexterously, as to sever the stem from the bough 

 just below the blossom, without seeming to have in 

 jured the flower by a single shot. In the course of 

 our walk, I observed several shrubs, almost hidden 

 by the luxuriant growth of that most elegant of 

 climbers, the yellow jessamine ( Gelsemium nitidum), 

 with its fragrant blossoms. 



From these heights south of Port Hudson, we had 

 a grand view of the great plain of the Mississippi, 

 far to the south and west, an endless labyrinth of 

 uninhabited swamps, covered with a variety of tim 

 ber, and threaded with bayous, one resembling ano 

 ther so exactly, that many a stranger, who has 

 entered them in a canoe, has wandered for days 

 without being able to extricate himself from their 

 woody mazes. Among these morasses, one called 

 the Devil s Swamp was in sight, and I found a 

 curious account of the origin of its name in a MS. 

 dated 1776, of Caleb Carpenter, a relation of my 

 New Orleans friend. 



A German emigrant having settled near the bank 

 of the Mississippi, in 1776, felled, with great labour, 

 some lofty cypresses ; but, happening one day to make 



