CAP. XXXL] THE DEVIL S SWAMP. 145 



On the &quot;boughs of the willows were perched several white 

 cranes, while herons, cormorants, and water-rails were swimming 

 on the lake, their various notes adding to the wildness of the scene. 

 Shriller than all, as the evening came on, we heard the voice of 

 the large bull-frog. 



As we went back to the house, over the high ground, we saw 

 three kinds of squirrels and many birds. So skillful 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 beautiful 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 injured 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 ele 

 gant of climbers, the yellow jessamine (Gelsemmm 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 timber, and threaded with bayous, one resembling 

 another 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 Mis 

 sissippi, in 1776, felled, with great labor, some lofty cypresses; 

 but, happening one day to make a false turn in his canoe, entered, 

 by mistake, a neighboring bayou. Every feature was so exactly 

 like the scene where he had been toiling- for weeks, that he could 

 riot question the identity of the spot. He saw all the same bends, 

 both in the larger and smaller channels. He made out distinctly 

 the same trees, among others the very individual cypresses which 

 he had cut down. There they stood, erect and entire, without 



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