244 - FOREST AND STREAM. . March so, 1895. 
you;see/a[brown*paper cigarette, with, a pinch of tobacco 
in it willj only burn so long, and if a 'Cajun smoke not, 
he perisheth. 
There were four of these tickly, tiny dug-outs at our 
camp on Dead Man's bayou, away down at the mouth of 
the Mississippi, when I met my friends Foster, Divine and 
Organ there. Also there were four 'Cajuns who alleged 
they could take a man, his gun, ammunition and decoys 
in each and paddle the whole without a drowning, I 
boldly pronounced the latter an impossibility, and asked 
whether a mortal being had ever been seen in one of 
these boats, which didn't seem bigger than a collar-box 
mashed endways. 
"Some man can wide- in peewoog," said Monsieur Oc- 
tave, "an' some man he fall out of peewoog, yas, him. 
You get in an' see if you prob'ly fallout, 'fore we go 
hunt." 
So I went into a pirogue alone and paddled across the 
bayou to get a picture of the camp, and chancing to re- 
turn without accident. M. Octave graciously said 'prob'ly 
I could go hunt. Mary Ann (Emilien) , my pusher, the 
homeliest and best of the lot, also assured me that he had 
never drowned very many men, and didn't believe I would 
get drowned. "Mais, dat Mr. Org,' " said he, "he got 
our peewoog. We got 'ti' ' peewoog, yas." And this in 
fact was true. Mr. Organ was there first, and discover- 
ing Mary Ann's big pirogue to be a ship compared to the 
others, calmly appropriated it for the use of his 215 
pounds of humanity, a good deal of which stuck out over 
the edge at that. There remained for Mary Ann and me a 
peewoog so very petite that I was ready to aver my shell- 
box would sink it. It may have been eight or nine feet 
long and say two fingers wide. I besought Mr. Organ to 
swap, pleading the inexperience of the only novice left of 
the crowd, all of whom had by this time had their first 
rides in the 'Cajun boats. 
"Not if I know it!" said Mr. Organ. "I was in that 
little 'un yesterday, and I don't went in it any more. I 
got a family, a wife and a dog, and you haven't. It 
don't make any difference if you do get drowned. Go 
ahead." 
ALONE WITH MARY ANN. 
This was encouraging in the early moroing, when at 
last we had made up oar minds to go slay something to 
eat. But there was only one thing to do. 
If you expect to get hit, you get it, but if you go 
ahead in, sometimes you don't get hit. Of course, I de- 
termined to go into that pirogue, but I give my solemn 
word of honor I had not the least doubt in the world I 
would get a wetting, which might be serious to 
me, bundled up in shooting gear. I was confi- 
dent it was my duty to go on and get drowned if need 
be. Therefore, I left some few simple directions as to the 
disposal of my effects, took a last glance at the bright 
morning sun and slid down into or on top of the baby 
boat which Mary Ann had pinned to the bank with the 
paddle. We showed a freeboard of an inch and a half 
above the water. The water looked very cold and black. 
I thought of the name of Dead Man's boyou and shivered. 
Mary Ann lit a cigarette. The pirogue shivered; we all 
shivered. When Mary Ann threw the match overboard 
I nearly fell out of the baat." "'Ti peewoog!" murmured 
Mary Ann. 
The other boats crawled out ahead of us, gliding with a 
beautiful, easy motion along in the middle of the channel. 
I admired the perfection of the paddlers' art which kept 
them so stable. Mary Ann sent our boat along with 
equal beauty, bat I cautioned him to keep in shore, and 
to spill me out on the side toward the bank when the 
time came, at which the others, a day older in ex- 
perience than I, guyed me abundantly, but tojno purpose. 
Every time Mary Ann lit a cigarette I groaned and pro- 
tested I was not happy, and the others laughed heart- 
lessly. Then all at once, before we had gone half of our 
three miles of paddling journey, I was seized of a strange 
confidence in the little boat and its master. I knew it 
was the right product of its environment. I admired Mary 
Ann as the possessor of an accomplishment worthy of a 
man. Then the little ship grew steady as a chair. My 
marrow crept no more, and my back no longer wobbled. 
We left the shore and went mid-channel with our friends. 
The tiny waves rippled along our Fide as the speed in- 
creased. The lesson was learned. The facon a piroguer 
was acquired. It is only the first step that counts. To- 
day I admire the pirogue and the men who handle it so 
skillfully. The duck huater who goes to the mouth of 
the River to shoot— and there are few better or more ac- 
cessible winter fowling grounds— must go to his shooting 
in a pirogue. At first this will dismay him. but if he 
keeps cool and trusts his paddler the chances are far in 
favor of his safety. When it comes to getting over the 
mud bars into the holes where ducks are working, he will 
see that the pirague is the boat proper for the country— 
the right thing in the right place. 
ABOUT THE DUCKS. 
But about the ducks. What difference about the 
ducks, anyhow, that morning within sound of the gulf 
surf? Certainly there were plenty of them, and certainly 
we did not get very many of them, and certainly we did 
not care. There was a very strong ebb tide that morn- 
ing, and the lucks "went out with the tide." The bare 
flats became seas of bottomless, slimy mud, from which 
the water fell away in a thousand babbling rips and noisy 
channels. The passes connecting the pond hole of the 
rushes became slippery avenues of slime, on which the 
pirogue left a deep and narrow track like that of some 
giant serpent. We could not get to our intended shoot- 
ing grounds without getting out and wading waist deep 
in the mud, a la 'Cajun. This Mr. Organ's pusher, Tom, 
the tough, was forced to do in order to have his freight 
back in time for luncheon, and Mr. Organ declares he 
never in his life heard anyone swear the way Tom did. . 
We pushed into the reeds in such places as we could, 
and watched and listened, though shooting very little. 
The keen salt air was refreshing, and the Sights and 
sounds^of the sea "marsh novel to most of us. Out of the 
reeds came a continuotis Babel of strident sounds, the 
discordant product of myriads of 'marsh hens" (king 
rail). Now and then one of these big rail would steal 
from cover out upon some mud bank, eagerly observed, 
perhaps, by some gunner who had discovered that king 
rail is exceedingly good when broiled. It took snap 
shooting to get him, for his hurried run ^back to cover 
was almost as swift as flight. 
Next to the rails in numbers were thej raccoons. I 
never saw such a coon country in my life. Once we saw 
five in view at the same time, and hardly a mud bank but 
bore a ring-tailed visitor fishing for clams. They were 
smallish, and rather yellowish coons, as I learned by trap- 
ping one night in the rushes back of our tent. They 
had paths all over the marsh. Trapping coon is a main 
'Cajun industry, though skins of such quality bring only 
about twenty-five cents. 
We fooled around on the marsh for a while, then, with 
singular unanimity, got hungry and concluded to go in to 
camp, our little fleet of pirogues gathering in at about 
the same time. Then we sat and fanned ourselves at 
mid-day and ordered luncheon. This was about a sample 
of our shooting. I never was before a member of so dil- 
letante a crowd of shooters. Nobody wanted to shoot, 
and Jim complained he couldn't get ducks enough to 
cook, but we smiled and told him to cook something else. 
And every man declared he had never had so lazy a hunt 
or so good a time. We just sat around and told stories, 
and woke Mr. Foster up and made him recite things. 
One evening we had a visitor, a friend of our hosts, Dr. 
Jno. N. Thomas, the quarantine officer for Port Eads, at 
the mouth of the river. Dr. Thomas is a very ardent 
shooter, and we all turned out for a hunt that evening, a 
special dispensation from Mr. Octave permitting us to 
shoot after noon. We had seen some very large flights 
into a series of pond holes not half a mile from our camp 
the evening before. This evening the tide was not so 
good (the ducks seemed to come up with the tide) but we 
did get a few ducks that time. Dr. Thomas got some- 
thing over a dozen in half an hour or so, and we could 
all see from our near, by stands that he was a rattling 
good duck-shot, for he fired only two or three shots which 
did not drop a bird. He was possessed of the proper en- 
thusiasm, too, and waded hip-.leep in the mud to get to 
his shooting stand, to which not even a pirogue could at- 
tain. 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE. 
It was Dr. Thomas as I remember it, who spread sedi- 
tion in our camp by means of an invitation to come down 
and see him at Port Eads. One fine morning we folded 
our tents, or rather, the servants did, and we boarded the 
lugger of Monsieur Octave and sailed away from Dead 
Man's bayou, thus breaking up one of the oddest and 
pleasantest camps I ever helped to tenant. After a brief 
stop at Quarantine station to say good-bye to Dr. Mayer, 
we made sail down the Mississippi to Dr. Thomas' station 
at Port Eads, which is the very jumping-off place for the 
Mississippi, and the last point of authority of the United 
States this side of the big light ship. At this lower 
quarantine station, the atmosphere is very salty , tarry and 
generally naval. Here abide the pilots who bring in the 
big ocean-going vessels. 1 Every other man you meet here 
is a captain, and a man on whose shoulders large responsi- 
bilities rest. The government has also officers, engineers, 
etc. , stationed here on the never-ending work of keeping 
up the jetties. Port Eads, as everybody knows, was 
named after the great engineer who originated the jetty 
system. They gave him in contempt the narrowest and 
shallowest of the three main passes of the mouth of the 
big river ,to make his experiment on, but out of this be 
made the channel through which all the great commerce 
of the river comes. Dr. Thomas explained all about the 
jetties as we went down the river. Then the commander 
of the United States dredge boat invited us to dinner, and 
we kept him bus3 r explaining where he got such oysters 
and such fish. And a crew of captains, everyone more 
nautical and good natured than all the rest, took us 
aboard a big steamer and out around the light ship, 
where we felt the full swell of the great gulf and realized 
that we were really out at sea and quite beyond the end 
of the Mississippi. 
HYPNOTISM AND DUCKS. 
For our Port Eads reception, at the hands of Dr. 
Thomas and his friends, I can only say it was of a piece 
with all the other kindnesses we received continually and 
continuously all through our whole sojourn in the South, 
and anything more than that could not be said. This 
said in cold type, will mean little to the traveller who is 
ignorant of the South but any man who has ever been in 
the South and met its representative men on anything of 
a social footing will know what it means, and will under- 
stand that out of such features will come memories far 
more keen and pleasant than any concerned with the 
actual sport of shooting, no matter what may be the size 
of the bag involved. Here, then, at the end of the river, 
the men from the beginning of the river saw their duck 
hunt end and fade away into forgetfulness, which quite 
swallowed up their original purpose. I suppose, to make 
this a really good shooting story, I ought to give a few 
figures of large size about the number of ducks we killed, 
and present particulars how any small remnant of ducks 
left by us can be most easily and immediately killed. It 
is all the fault of Dr. Thomas. Dr. Mayer, and all those 
sea-faring men down there in Louisiana. Our intentions 
were good. We meant to kill a few thousand ducks, and 
I meant to write a great story about it all, but these men 
made us forget all about it, and we fell to visiting instead 
of shooting. That was the way' it all happened, and I dis- 
claim responsibility for the whole business. All the way 
up the river my friend Organ was telling what a fine 
time he had had, the best hunt he ever had in his life; yet 
I doubt very seriously whether Mr. Organ killed over a 
half dozen ducks on his whole trip. Those men down 
there cast a spell over us I believe. Before the hypnotism 
of a Southern welcome, the Northern man is helpless as 
a babe. With this explanation I beg readers to pardon 
the smallness of our score of ducks. We hadn't lost any 
ducks. We thought we had, but we hadn't. 
So one morning the big flyer, steamer Louisiana, carry- 
ing mails between New York and New Orleans, came into 
the offing headed up, and Dr. Thomas hustled us together 
to catch the fastest boat for the city to which it now be- 
came'necessary for some of us to return. The captain of 
the Louisiana probably didn't want to stop, but he did, 
after nearly pulling a leg out of our tiny steam launch, 
so we went aboard and said good-byes which came hard. 
The ride up river, 122 miles to New Orleans, was one of 
the pleasantest features of our experiences on the Father 
of Floods. Then we left Mi-. Foster, our host of the 
camp, at his home in the city, Mr. Divine returning to 
his home in Memphis and taking me along with liim, and 
Mr. Organ continuing north to his home in Chicago, to 
which city I was glad enough I did not have to return 
for a time. 
About further wanderings in divers parts of the South 
I hope I shall not weary by telling in coming numbers of 
Forest and Stream. As to the duck shooting at the 
mouth of the Mississippi River, I wish to say that it is 
there, plenty of it, open and accessible, such shooting as 
a Northern man knows nothing of in these days. But I 
must urge any intending visitor of these regions to be 
very careful to steer clear of charms and spells, lest there- 
by he, going stoutly forth resolved upon a quest for 
ducks, shall come back ingloriously of the firm belief 
that after all he hasn't lost anv ducks. 
E. Hough. 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
ADDENDA FROM THE SUNNY SOUTH. 
Friends of Forest and Stream in the South have been 
good enough to send the following among other letters of 
comment upon the article on the "Sunny South," now 
current in the paper. 
Quarantine Station, Port Eads, La., February 19. — 
Allow me to congratulate and thank you for your first 
article on the Sunny South. There is not a Southerner 
who reads this article who will not feel grateful to you, 
and every Southern gentleman sportsman will feel en- 
deared to you for the kind words said in the article. We 
and our section here have been so misunderstood, mis- 
judged and maligned that such expressions from a 
Northern brother make us believe that truth will at 
length triumph and prevail. 
We are all one people of the greatest and grandest 
country under the sun, and there is no earthly sense or 
reason for sectional prejudice or feeling. The South to- 
day is as loyal to the Union as any other section of the 
country, and the opportunity only needs to present itself 
to see her stalwart legions hurrying to the front to up- 
hold the Nation's honor. 
Our weather here has been extremely cold — down to 18° 
above— at this, the extreme southern point of Louisiana. 
Snow fell last Thursday to the depth of six inches, and 
everything was frozen stiff. During this weather, with 
two companions, I went about twenty miles up the river 
above Fort Jackson for a snipe hunt, and in five hours our 
three guns brought down 72 jack snipe, 15 rabbits and 15 
quail. The snipe shooting was particularly fine. Often 
they would get up just out of range and fly off for a half 
mile, then turn and come down with the wind at about 
seventy-five miles an hour, and as they passed over our 
heads we would drop them. As there was from five to ten 
inches of snow on the ground frequently, in falling they 
would tumble with such force as almost to bury them- 
selves in the ' snow. I can say with certainty that such 
sport under such circumstances and conditions was never 
before enjoyed by any other sportsman in Louisiana. 
Knowing that I shall read the other articles in the series 
with as much pleasure as the first, I am, yours truly, ^ 
Jno. N. Thomas. 
Memphis, March 1— The articles on the "Sunny South" 
are creating quite a sensation down here. Aside from 
the personal interest of some of us, the articles are giving 
great satisfaction to the mass of people, on account of the 
frank manner m which you deal with the two subjects, 
"the North and the South of it." and certainly nothing 
could give a more graphic description of bear life in Mis- 
sissippi than that of your stay with Bobo. I think some 
of my lady friends enjoyed these articles about as much 
as anything they ever read, in fact I have heard nothing 
but nice things about them. T. A. D. 
Grand Rapids, Mich., Feb. 16.— I want to thank you 
for the interesting reading to be found in your stories of 
the South published in the sportsman's own paper, the 
Forest and Stream, and I hope so long as you are one of 
its staff you'll never give up these trips and never fail to 
give the readers accounts of them. They will always re- 
main in my mind as pleasant memories of a section of 
country so different from the North. 
I agree with you that the South has progressed enough, 
so far as the sportsmen are concerned. If the north in 
one respect could keep up with the south, it would do 
very well. That one thing is to keep the spirit of^hospi- 
tality. 
I am not the only pleased with the stories of the Sunny 
South. I am sure that I speak in behalf of the majority 
of the readers of Foaest and Stream when" I say keep at it. 
C. F. Disbkow. 
Brownsville, March 1. — Salutations and thanks. As 
the open season on quail closed yesterday, and our guns 
are now laid away till the young squrriels are edible, 
which with us is about the first of May. and as our 
mutual friends have deputed me to give you a resume of 
happenings in this locality since November, when you 
visited us. I will endeavor to give the same in as con- 
densed form as possible, a duty of great pleasure by the 
way, as we much enjoy reading in "ours" the like reports 
as to fish and game which it publishes. 
To begin with, about 100 residents of our town and 
neighborhood visited the Big Lake in the Mississippi bot- 
tom, thirty miles off, for fur, fin, feather and fun, during 
the month of November, and never in the history of camp- 
ing was there a greater abundance of the enumerated 
articles in evidence. Dr. Sevier, Sr., and the elder Moses 
went first, carrying their own and several other families, 
and these in turn were followed by others till our com- 
munity was threatened with disruption nearly. And 
talk of the enjoyment men have in camp, why, they are 
not in it; wait till you see a sportsman's good wife select 
a camping place, order the arrangements of it, the cook- 
ing appurtances, the setting of tables, fixing the commis- 
sary department, the good things stored in proper places. 
Well, of game and fish they got plenty, and returned in 
improved health and with the spirits that always attend 
such enjoyable outings. About the middle of the month, 
Dr. Taylor and his party had their annual two weeks- 
catching more fish, killing more turkeys, ducks and other 
game than in many previous years; our friends Moses and 
McConnies leading the list on turkeys by killing nine, and 
also by catchting a trout weighing five and one-half 
P °About Christmas, Dr. T. D. Cooper and party crossed 
the river into Arkansas and got two deer, some turkeys 
and many fish, and will next fall return to the same 
locality. . 
Though all our sporting crew were not so fortunate as 
to be in camp, we nevertheless were not prevented from 
