433 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 6, 1912 
The Sunk Lands 
By WILLIAM PERRY BROWN 
sued the even tenor of their furrowed way with 
wagging heads and switching tails, keeping time 
to their measured steps. At intervals the man 
would rip out another edition of billingsgate em¬ 
bellished with now and then an extra tough word 
on the side. Vainly I looked for some trouble¬ 
some idiosyncracy on the part of the mules or 
something that could in a measure at least afford 
a pretext for such vigorous maledictions. Final¬ 
ly I concluded that swearing was to this man 
what whistling or hymn singing was to others. 
Fetching his team to a standstill as I approached, 
the plowman scrutinized me closely. ‘ If yer 
name ain’t -,” he finally inquired, “what 
is it?” Then, half apologetically: “Ye’ve cer¬ 
tainly got a - face if thar ever wuz one.” 
A moment’s conversation revealed to me that 
this talented blasphemer was a son of one of 
my father’s brothers, the latter having removed 
to the West in the early days. Till that time, 
however, neither of us was aware of the other’s 
existence. 
The muleteers were given charge of the team 
and rny newly-found cousin invited me to a snug 
cabin built into the sheltered side of a big hum¬ 
mock. It took the remainder of the day to 
satisfy his inquiries concerning the East, which 
he had never seen and of whose ways and cus¬ 
toms he was in ignorance. Fie had cut loose 
from home at a very early age and had made 
his own unaided way in life until at that time 
he owned a vast tract of excellent prairie land 
and large flocks and herds. In the course of 
conversation I ventured to touch, delicately as 
possible, upon his remarkable attainments as a 
swearer. He was unfeignedly surprised and de¬ 
clared that he had no use for a profane man. 
He had traveled for some years, he said, on the 
Mississippi River boats and often when pre¬ 
occupied he found himself rehearsing the ex¬ 
pletive code of the roustabout foremen. While 
it was difficult to classify those sulphurous utter¬ 
ances which greeted my arrival with the “dead 
languages,” having no present force or signifi¬ 
cance, still I fain would do it, since discovering 
the social status of their declaimer. At all events 
the language was no part of the individual, for 
I found my cousin to be one of the mildest man¬ 
nered men imaginable. 
I remained over night and had hard work 
to tear myself away from his urgent entreaties 
to remain and “make a visit.” But I was anxious 
to equip myself and get among the soul-stirring 
elements somewhere beyond. To my cousin’s 
interrogatories I replied that I was on a tour 
of the ranches in the interests of a Kansas City 
journal, which was part of the truth. An inci¬ 
dent occurred while I was making ready to de¬ 
part which, though painful, was, I believe, 
fraught with salutary results to Skeezik. The 
animal had from the very first an unpleasant 
habit of running backward when I attempted 
to adjust the headstall. The present occasion 
was no exception, save that his route was for 
him unfortunately chosen. A lye leach lay in 
his track, and hitting his heels against its foun¬ 
dation, Skeezik literally sat down in a puddle 
of crude lye. The alkali promptly took the hair 
off and burned into the exposed flesh. With a 
snort of terror, Skeezik let his heels fly and the 
lye leach soared skyward, while concentrated 
potash was showered around indiscriminately. 
Skeezik was either too much frightened or too 
(Continued on page 452.) 
T O read many of the current periodicals now¬ 
adays, one might think that to reach the 
wilderness one must go to Canada or 
Alaska, or somewhere else in that vague north- 
land stretching from the Pacific to Fludson’s 
Bay, having a southerly beginning somewhere 
north of Lake Superior, with an easterly shoot 
into Labrador. There is wilderness there in 
almost any direction, and climate, too. Climate 
mostly hovering about freezing point and far 
below, with snow and ice. But it is equally true 
to those who know that some of our older States 
have wilderness enough to satisfy even the 
crudest nature lover, if one will go where it is. 
Wilderness also, where ice and snow claim but 
a minimum of climatic monopoly during the 
legitimate winter months; where, in fact, reci¬ 
procity, ’ if not free trade, rules the general 
weather market, so as to suit all tastes, if one 
will either stay there long enough, or go there 
at a time when one's special brand of weather 
may be expected to come uppermost. 
Yes, sir. There are large areas outside of the 
Adirondacks where the noise of dogs, the crack 
of guns, the swish of the angler’s line, and the 
chance of getting lost are more potent than the 
surveyor’s level, the steam whistle, or even the 
farmer’s plow. Areas that are so near to many 
over-crowded cities, that one wonders why the 
teeming street crowds are not spilled far more 
generously into these wilderness oases. 
There is still, among other such spots, a large 
district in Northeast Arkansas and Southeast 
Missouri, to which the term wilderness can be 
broadly applied. It is generally known as the 
sunk lands of the St. Francis, and lays across 
the ^Mississippi River from the more famous 
Reelfoot Lake region. ?\Iarsh, swamp land, lake, 
forest, running stream dominate it, while the 
St. Francis River, flowing south through a vast 
lowland region, makes it easily penetrable by 
boat or canoe. 
IMemphis is hardly three score miles to the 
south, while St. Louis to the north is within 
three or four hours by rail. Sundry railroads 
tap the borders of this region; Little Rock, 
Springfield and Cairo, all considerable cities, lie 
within easy contiguity. To manj' it will seem 
hardly credible that deer, bears, turkeys, wild¬ 
cats, ’coons, ducks in thousands, should perma¬ 
nently abide there, apparently safe from extinc¬ 
tion, although thick settled farming and lumber¬ 
ing regions abound upon all sides, and the Mis¬ 
sissippi’s banks are thYkly dotted with towns 
and \illages. 
One noted railroad flag station, called Hachie 
Co m, lies almost in the heart of this district. 
Here the lowlands and the numerous lakes 
spread out into great primeval stretches of 
swamp, woodland and marsh, comprising mil¬ 
lions of acres of land and water, where the usual 
adjuncts of civilization are almost wholly want¬ 
ing. Solitude is here, and great forests as dense 
and labyrinthine as the trackless areas in East 
Africa. If the nature of the game to be had 
here is more in accord with our native precon¬ 
ceptions of what wild game ought to be, it is 
just as-satisfactory to. hunt it in a sportsman¬ 
like way as to join in the tumultuous doings that 
seem to characterize an African lion and ele¬ 
phant hunt where.scores of natives are em¬ 
ployed. 
This Arkansas and Missouri region includes a 
belt from twenty-five to fifty miles wide and 
over a hundred long, where one may travel miles 
without seeing signs of human occupancy. Un¬ 
less you are a born woodsman, you may well 
wish the settlements were closer together if* 
your compass is faulty, the weather foggy, or 
you have become too much “turned round.” At 
long intervals the hut of some lonely trapper— 
on the main streams—the batteau of the pearl 
mussel hunter, or, during the open season, the 
camp of a hunting party, may gladden your 
eyes. 
Roaming this forest is no child’s play, even 
if one understands woodcraft sufficiently to keep 
from being lost. The undergrowth is dense over 
large areas; ferns, vines, briers, all sorts of oak, 
chinquapin and other scrub, fallen logs, tussocks 
wirh the continual intervening of sinuous swamp 
land strips, often with a lake or pond as the 
center, together with much bog and marsh along 
the edges; in fact, the coverts are so ample that 
game, driven out elsewhere, finds there a natural 
refuge roaming at will over large areas where 
it is less disturbed. When too closely pursued 
by dogs and • hunters, the game flees hither, 
thither, about the watery wilderness where scent 
is so easily lost and concealment is everywhere 
at hand. 
Too much water at times of the great floods 
has, in fact, destroyed more game in the sunk 
lands than all the hunters. Every few years the 
Mississippi rises higher than usual and goes 
rioting through this section in a way that com¬ 
pletely submerges man}' of the “islands” where 
ordinarily the game finds refuge. Not many 
years ago a great overflow covered the whole 
St. Francis basin, forming an inland sea fifty 
miles wide in places. It buried all the ordinarily 
high places. Hundreds of deer, trying to swim 
in this beforested sea, were entangled in drifts 
or vines and fallen treetops. Others, reaching 
the high railroads along Crowley’s Ridge on the 
west, were slaughtered by negro and other pot¬ 
hunters; in fact, by every one but the sports¬ 
men who opposed so far as was possible this 
wanton and cruel destruction. The following 
fall but few deer could be found throughout this 
wide area, though ducks, squirrels, turkeys and 
even beqrs were as numerous as ever. Tree 
climbing and flying game had utilized their natu¬ 
ral aids for self preservation. Several years of 
comparatively dry seasons enabled the deer to 
multiply rapidly, as they always do, where letting 
up in slaughter conspires with nature to encour¬ 
age the growth of wild creatures. 
Of late years more stringent game regulations 
penalizing the shipment of game from the States 
where it is killed show results that are encour¬ 
aging. The great bottoms of the St. Francis are 
becoming more widely known as one of the 
finest deer, bear and turkey sections in the mid¬ 
dle West. Also Uncle Sam has been doing good 
work, and now a long levee extends more or 
