Cypress Swamps 99 
low swamps near its mouth, between level 
walls of tree trunks, it blustered no more, 
neither vaunted itself, but swiftly, sullenly, 
irresistibly rose from its bed in silent exulta- 
tion. 
In my dugout, daily I slipped into the 
gloom of the swamp, a world more aqueous 
than terrestrial, where bony arms met over- 
head and trunks loomed in Tartarean gloom 
in the rain; following meandering and devious 
ways in the canes with an eye on certain 
landmarks, or watermarks, in order to find my 
way out of the labyrinth. 
Thus I would paddle around one bend and 
another, turning and twisting, never see- 
ing far ahead in that interminable jungle, 
until far from the yellow river and the signs 
of human life which the high ground along 
the stream afforded; far in time, rather than 
in distance, for there, it was as if man had 
not yet appeared upon the earth, as if the 
earth was not yet prepared for his advent. 
In the remote and densest part of the jungle 
the silence was unbroken save by the calls of 
the red-bellied wood peckers who inhabited 
that solitude and with whom the nesting 
season had already begun. This handsome 
woodpecker is a veritable swamp spirit, a 
