to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a wood-pile.
On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth, shot out,
and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautiful black eyes,
and demure manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was thrown to him,
and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swell of the boat.
Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out
in the smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness
of an old voyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian
than a white child, and laughed when asked if she were afraid.
She had been raised in a pirogue and could go anywhere.
She was bound out to pick willow leaves for the stock, and she pointed
to a house near by with water three inches deep on the floors.
At its back door was moored a raft about thirty feet square,
with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of this some sixteen
cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did not complain,
except on account of losing their stock, and promptly brought a
supply of wood in a flat.
From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not a spot
of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles there
is nothing but the river’s flood. Black River had risen during Thursday,
the 23rd, 1
As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent,
but are yet still miles apart. Nearly all of them are deserted,
and the out-houses floated off. To add to the gloom, almost every
living thing seems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird
nor the bark of the squirrel can be heard in this solitude.
Sometimes a morose gar will throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river,
but beyond this everything is quiet–the quiet of dissolution.
Down the river floats now a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then
a cluster of neatly split fence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass,
solemnly guarded by a pair of buzzards, the only bird to be seen,
which feast on the carcass as it bears them along. A picture-frame
in which there was a cheap lithograph of a soldier on horseback,
as it floated on told of some hearth invaded by the water and despoiled
of this ornament.
At dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place alongside the woods was hunted
and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast for the night.
A pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over forest and river,
making a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscape study,
could an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion of
the engines had ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stilled,
and the enveloping silence closed upon us, and such silence it was!
Usually in a forest at night one can hear the piping of frogs,
the hum of insects, or the dropping of limbs; but here nature was dumb.
The dark recesses, those aisles into this cathedral, gave forth no sound,
and even the ripplings of the current die away.
At daylight Friday morning all hands were up, and up the Black we started.
The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which is remarkably
straight, put on its loveliest garb. The blossoms of the haw perfumed
the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely along the banks.
The trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growth than below.
More fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the same scene
presented itself–smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures, negro quarters
anchored in confusion against some oak, and the modest residence just
showing its eaves above water. The sun came up in a glory of carmine,
and the trees were brilliant in their varied shades of green.
Not a foot of soil is to be seen anywhere, and the water is apparently growing
deeper and deeper, for it reaches up to the branches of the largest trees.