Pec. 17, 1904] 
some only a quarter, while from $1.25 to $5 an ounce, if 
care is taken to assort them. How these slugs are worked 
over for the market by the jewelers may be imagined by 
the advertisements of "real" pearls for sale in various 
papers. A trick of the trade is to take some of the 
shoulders of mere button shells and from a round knob 
work out a "perl" with the dull side hidden by the set- 
ting. It makes as pretty an ornament as the genuine ball 
pearl, but is worth only the time spent in working it out. 
They find the mussels in beds, usually just below the 
bend off a sand-bar, and in the deeper water toward the 
bluff bank. The large shells are down the center of the 
bed, and toward the edge are the little ones. Dredge out 
the big ones, and the space is filled in from the sides. The 
line of mussels is well marked, and the darkies I saw be- 
gan at the upper end of the bed, worked clear across it, 
and then back again, a distance of six or seven feet where 
I saw them. Some beds are as wide as the river. At the 
edge the tongs sometimes landed on the sand, and then 
darky just wiggled and walked it along on the bot- 
tom till the sound of shells being trod on came up the 
handles with the feel, whereupon he got the tong maw 
over a bunch and brought them up. Most of the St. 
Farncis shells are "nigger heads," and are better for but- 
ton making than the Higgison eyes. Rarely is a Higgison 
eye caught in the St. Francis, though I saw a couple of 
the shells there. "Wash-boards" are not much account, 
and are thrown away, but white clams and butterflies are 
worth $40 a ton, and are used in making pistol grips, and 
such finery. The diggers, so far as I heard, never sort 
the shells, but get $10 a ton for them, including the bunch 
of white clams that often run as high as a hundred pounds 
to the ton of digging. 
I was at Fondrens' till the morning of December 16, 
and then pulled on down the river, and found the banks 
growing higher as I went further on, as I had been told 
they would. The woods were of novel appearance because 
of the vines that now hung conspicuously from the trees, 
some like ropes clear from the top of a 75-foot branch, 
causing one to wonder whether they climbed up and then 
swung clear, or reached down. There were matted tangles 
and again great trees under which no brush was growing. 
A look across the bottoms from the top of a bank showed 
a mass of flat lands, some of it dead level and some roll- 
ing gently, and some in almost hummocky roughness. 
There were ditch-like sloughs leading away with the 
rims higher than the ground on either side, as if they had 
really been dug with shovels. Some of these have names, 
are Horse Shoe Bayous and Big Lake Sloughs. They in- 
dicate ancient courses of the St. Francis, or where the 
mud was softer during the overflow than elsewhere, and 
oozed away in mucky flood, leaving natural drains and a 
series of pond holes. 
I saw some mallard ducks at intervals, and soon came 
to associate them with clearings just below the sand-bars 
where I put them up. They were not very wild, but still 
kept at long range. Why they choose to rest and feed 
just above the swamp land farms I could not determine; 
yet the sand-bars for miles would be barren of this game, 
and then they would appear when the thinning under- 
brush, the deadenings, and the straggling fences, with 
yelping dogs, staring canerooters and slouching humans, 
indicated the advance of civilization into the "bresh." 
On the sand-bars I saw the tracks of a considerable 
variety of animals — 'coons, mink, rabbits, wild turkeys, a 
deer or two, and some wildcats. One might say that it 
was just a long succession of woods, sand-bars, and clear- 
ings marking the miles from end to end of the St. Francis 
that I saw. It was clearly a "monotonous" region, of the 
sort that some temperaments find utterly unbearable. 
There was no "excitement" in the air, a Baltimore oriole 
giving the loudest yell I heard, and great flocks of un- 
dignified, chattering, impudent robins coming down to 
splash and drink morning and evening were the most of 
the company I had. The robins did not hold their heads 
up and hop around as on a northern lawn; but some 
actually walked and chattered like blackbirds, though not 
so loud. Sometimes I saw fox squirrels running among 
the branches, or on. the ground, and frequently I saw 
hawks, and several eagles — big fellows. 
Just above Big Bayou I found a little tarred paper and 
drift-wood cabin boat, with a man of reddish mustache in 
the doorway, who said his name was Charlie Gunlock, 
the companion of Mitchell on many trips, and who was 
glad to hear from his friend. A few days before he had 
shot at a deer three times "200 yards away," and it didn't 
move till the last shot, when it jumped sideways and fell 
dead, all three bullets in its breast, put there in the cold- 
blooded fashion that German hunters have. He was go- 
ing to Wynne in the morning with fifteen 'coon hides 
dressed better than any' other hides on the river. At Big 
Bayou, a few miles below, I was at the mouth of one of 
the streams coming clear from St. Francis Lake, another 
outlet of the swamps, but impassable on account of low 
water and fallen trees. 
Port Levesque is the post-office, a couple or three miles 
out from Wilkinson's Ferry, and the place where Witts- 
burg's mail goes now, since its post-office was discon- 
tinued. 
Wittsburg was a steamboat town forty years ago — 2,000 
inhabitants, and a thriving trade, lots of whiskey and full 
of life. The houses have all been torn down, and as I 
floated past in the current, Crawley's Ridge, where the 
town had been built, presented just a pastoral scene — 
some forest, farming in what had been the principal 
streets, and a lone horseman coming down to ford the 
stream. But the ridge was a welcome slight — an elevation 
called by the swamp people "our levee," to which they flee 
when the artificial one along the Mississippi breaks, and 
to which they swim their cattle, sometimes for ten miles, 
resting them on the ridges in water knee-deep. Wilkin- 
son, of the ferry at Big Bayou, told of a noted old steer 
that refused to be driven and escaped the dug-out cowmen 
to swim without resting for six or seven miles through 
the woods and over the opens to safety. 
"I've seen cattle standing side-deep in the water," Wil- 
kinson said, "and it as cold as ice. They'd just stand 
there with their noses out, and all of a sudden they'd roll 
over, and go floating away, with their legs out, chilled 
and stiff. Yessir. If it hadn't been for people living in a 
fool's paradise and expecting the levee was going to hold 
and not driving their cattle over to the ridge, not any cat- 
tle would be lost. But them engineers promise the levee'll 
bold, and people believes them, and then — then it breaks ; 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
it always does when the water's a little high, and we get 
drowned out. If we had any say there wouldn't be n® 
levee. We'd get our land covered over with silt after a 
lime and it would be well fertilized, and by and by we'd 
be above the water. If the Government's got to spend 
money shoveling dirt, and paying big money out, why 
don't they build mounds to put the stock on and for peo- 
ple to go, too— a mound on each plantation, and then 
everybody would be all right; or why don't they do like 
Eads said, and build levees crosswise the valley, and 
check the current and make it drop the sediment? I'll 
tell you why they don't. Thev know that if they got the 
bottoms filled in a hull lot of them levee board grafters 
r.d lose their jobs, or their children would, and then 
they'd have to think up a new scheme, when the old 
scheme would do just as well. Why — why — " 
And so on. The man back in the bottoms is up on the 
levee question from his point of view. He keeps a flat- 
boat lying alongside his house when the river gets up, and 
he's becoming more and more forehanded, not paying so 
much attention to Government predictions as he used to 
as regards the levees holding, but getting his cattle back 
to the great natural levee known- as Crawley's Ridge; as 
soon as the rise becomes menacing at Cairo, the cattle 
ore rushed to the hills. 
Not far below Wittsburg is Crown's Ditch, noted be- 
cause of a man's efforts to drain a lake back from the 
river a bit. He spent some thousands of dollars digging, 
and then the discovery was made that the lake level was 
about 12 feet below the level of the river, so they stopped 
digging. Crown Ditch Eddy had a fine bed of shells in 
it, and many a white clam was taken out there. 
Wittsburg was the place to which Old John Pattison 
came from his home in the brakes fifteen miles away, 
Pattison was a noted swamp angel. He had a past that 
kept him in the brakes, and a present that was interest* 
ing. One time he swam the river at Witisburg when it 
was high and ice was forming. He hit the trail for home, 
not minding what happened, being in a hilarious condi- 
tion. His two dogs found a panther in the road and 
tackled it. Another panther came to the rescue of the 
first, and a third came, too. Old John awakened to the 
fact that something was doing in the murk blackness of 
night, dismounted from his horse and drew his knife. He 
found a pile of dogs and panthers in the road, a lively, 
screaming pile, but which he couldn't make out well 
enough to see what was which. He thought a while, and 
then noticed that the dogs had different hair from the 
cats, upon which he took to jabbing the knife into the 
cat hair hilt deep. In the morning, a neighbor came 
along and found Old Pattison with his feet on a pile of 
three dead panthers, and his head on his two sleeping 
dogs, himself also sleeping, a contented smile on his face, 
a bloody knife in his hands, and icicles in his long 
whiskers. 
For several days the sun had been gradually fading 
away in a haze. Along about noon on December 18 I 
missed the sun altogether, and glancing around saw that 
the haze was come to be a cloud, covering the sky, while 
the air was damp and shivery. I began to freshen up on 
the oars, and hunt some secluded nook in which to pass 
a rainstorm. It was a long pull, my spirits growing 
gloomier as the sky came down closer to the tree tops. It 
seemed as if the rain would not hold off another minute; 
stray whiffs of mist did come at intervals. I pulled hard 
on the oars and made good time, but I hit logs once in a 
while, there not being enough current to indicate their 
presence. 
It was such a day as had seen me swamped on the Mis- 
sissippi, though much colder. I wanted a little bayou or 
pocket out of reach of winds, and went searching for one. 
But the river was much wider now than above Parkins, 
where numerous bayous come in, and the banks were far 
higher — thirty feet from the water to the crest of the 
steep "slip bank." The afternoon waned as I rowed on 
and on. No pocket presented itself, and the weather 
grew grayer, moister and gloomier as the twilight closed 
down. • 
Not far ahead was L'Anquille River, coming into the 
St. Francis, but though the name as pronounced by a 
man whom I hailed at a landing sounded familiar, I could 
not place the stream, nor tell from which side it came 
into the St. Francis. 
Dusk came, and as I rounded a bend a high ridge of 
land loomed before me — Crawley's Ridge. I could see a 
tent or two, some shacks, and partial clearings on the 
hillside, while before me another Stillwater was entered 
by the St. Francis at right angles. It was a long, wide 
reach of water, and which way to go. was now a question ; 
either way might be up stream, and as far as I could see 
there was no sheltering place for my boat It was worse, 
in fact, than a mile up the St. Francis. But I could not 
see anything plainly. Suddenly, far to the left, a glimmer 
of lamp light showed so close to the water's edge that it 
could mean' only one thing— a cabin boat. I had heard 
stories of St. Francis River shanty boat men, and I re- 
called the bloody theme of some of these. Nevertheless 
those clouds dragging among the trees along the back of 
Crawley's Ridge were more ominous. As the skiff headed 
toward the light, the wind began to blow, lifting along 
the eddy and snatching bits of spray from the tops of 
little waves. A hundred rods further on the waves were 
rolling a foot high, but I ran under the bow of a steamer- 
hull model boat, and a little man, bow-legged and crippled, 
came to the door to see what the stroke of oarlocks meant. 
"Come in, come in !" he said, on seeing me. "COme in ; 
theh ain't no women folks here to bother you ! Come 
right in, strangeh !" 
Then the rain began to pour down like a summer 
shower, and inside with my duffle I was ready to listen ; 
and well I might be, for my host was an Aries Person of 
the Fire Triplicity. Raymond S. Spears. 
Camera Shots at Big Game. 
Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. have published a new edition 
of "Camera Shots at Big Game," by Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Walli- 
han, with an introduction by President Roosevelt. The volume 
was described at length in Forest and Stream at the time of the 
original publication, and we have now only to repeat that it is 
the best collection of photographs of living wild North American 
animals that we have ever seen. 
The picture of the leaping cougar, which forms the frontispiece, 
is very wonderful, and could only have been taken by a combina- 
tion of good luck, good judgment and high photographic skill, 
such as rarely come together. 
The price of this edition, although it contains several new pic- 
tures, is but $5. 
S67 
In Elephant Land. 
How well do I remember my first view of an ele- 
phant. The little country village in which I resided 
had been profusely placarded with the announcement 
of an exhibition of wax figures, accompanied with that 
of a living elephant, which was the first that had been 
exhibited in the burgh. Of course I was on the move 
early on the morning of the show in company with a 
majority of the youngsters of the vicinity for the pur- 
pose of inspecting the footprints of the animal in thfe 
streets. Being the leading feature of the show, it had 
been driven into the village during the night, as many 
of the inhabitants had never seen one. When the show 
was opened in the afternoon I was taken to it by mjr 
father, and found it crowded with visitors, a greater 
portion of whom spent the major portion of their time 
in front of the animal, keeping its custodian busy an- 
swering questions and preventing the constant attempts 
to annoy it. As I stood and gazed at it, lost in wonder, 
little did I imagine that I would ever meet the elephant 
in its native haunts. On one of my first trips up into 
the interior, after my arrival in Natal, South Africa, 
my attention was attracted one day by meeting what I 
first imagined were several gigantic loads of hay. When 
my team drew near enough to make a close inspection 
I was amazed to discover that what I supposed was hay 
was elephant tusks piled up and lashed on to the wag- 
ons with thongs of raw hide. The ivory was in transit 
from a store, well up in the interior, down to the coast 
for shipment to England. Subsequently, I learned that 
it was a common practice of the country stores to fit 
out traders with all the supplies necessary for barter 
with the natives, to be paid for in ivory at a fixed price 
per pound. 
My first sight of elephants in their native haunts 
was while I was with a friend, who was prospecting 
for gold. He had discovered an alluvial deposit near 
Lydenburg, and received a reward from the Boer Gov- 
ernment for his find, which caused him to increase ex- 
ertions in hopes of making further discoveries. We 
had passed into the Lourenco Marquez District, and 
reached the banks of one of the branches of the Croco- 
dile River, when we entered a territory governed by a 
native chief, who would not allow an elephant to be 
killed in his kingdom except by his own hunters. Dur- 
ing the whole of our stay in his territory we were ac- 
companied by a party of his followers who never suf- 
fered us to get out of their sight. Finally, becoming 
convinced that we had no intention of hunting, beyond 
killing enough of the- various species of antelopes to 
supply our party with fresh meat, they proffered to 
show us a herd of elephants which were in our imme- 
diate neighborhood. Gladly accepting the proffer, we 
accompanied them some five or six miles from our 
camp, when we were placed in concealment on the top 
of a hill which overlooked a small stream at its foot, 
and gave a fine view of the rising ground beyond. After 
remaining hidden some time, the gestures of the na- 
tive, who was left with us, caused us to turn our eyes 
toward the uplands in front, when the agitation of the 
foliage gave warning of the passing of the expected 
game. In a few minutes the elephants became partially 
visible through the intervening underwood, and I 
counted sixty-three, which were plainly perceptible to 
my astonished gaze, and were evidently but a portion 
of the entire herd. After the last one had passed out 
of sight our custodian piloted us back to the camp, and 
I vowed never to be caught in a similar predicament 
again. The feeling of having been within a short dis- 
tance of an animal I had always vehemently wished to 
kill, and having been prevented from making the at- 
tempt, so perturbed me that some time elapsed before 
I recovered my composure. 
My next encounter with them took place on the 
banks of the Zambesi River while on my way to the 
Victoria Falls. For several days I had been accom- 
panying a party of Boers, who were on a regular hunt 
for ivory. Having formed the acquaintance of a por- 
tion of them sometime : previously, I was generously 
invited to join the gang, and was furnished with a gun 
of suitable calibre for 'large game. We were about 
breaking up camp one^ morning when several of the 
party, who had been on a scout during the preceding 
night, made their appearance and reported that they 
had seen indications which plainly demonstrated the 
presence of a herd of tuskers within a short distance 
of our quarters. All the preparations for moving were 
immediately suspended and the hunters promptly ar- 
ranged for a secret onslaught on the much coveted 
game. By the scouts we were taken several miles from 
our camp and distributed in carefully concealed posi- 
tions, stretched along in a line for a considerable dis- 
tance, to intercept the progress of the herd, which were 
reported to be feeding along slowly and not aware of 
our propinquity. It required a strong effort on my 
part to follow the instructions given me to remain per- 
fectly quiet and allow the game to advance on me in- 
stead of stealthily making my way toward it. Finally 
my patience was rewarded by catching a glimpse of the 
tips of a pair of tusks just protruding from a dense 
mass of foliage about a hundred feet from me. It 
seemed an age before the head of the animal appeared, 
when I breathlessly took aim and pulled the trigger. 
In my confused state I neglected to hold the butt of 
the huge rifle firmly against my shoulder, and conse- 
quently received so sudden a jar that I abruptly sat 
down with such force that it was some seconds before 
I recovered consciousness and concluded to remain 
seated in order to escape any stray bullet fired by oth- 
ers of the party at game in my immediate vicinity. So 
soon as there was a cessation of the fusilade I resumed 
an upright position and made my way back to the spot 
where I had seen the head, and it was with a feeling 
of inordinate exultation that I cast my eyes upon the 
body of a huge elephant, whose skull had been per- 
forated by the ball of the gun which had given me such 
a hasty tumble. In a short time I was joined by the 
rest of the hunters and congratulated on my good luck. 
Three other carcasses completed the number which* 
had been killed, and I received the hearty congratu- 
lations of the party for having secured next to the 
finest pair of tusks. They were soon separated from 
the skull and carried to the camp with those acquired 
by the others. 
