A DAY IN THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP
[The stories and legends associated with the Swamp are many. The most authentic and pathetic of all, and the one which Thomas Moore has made the theme of a poem, is to this effect: a young man who lost his mind on the death of the girl he loved, disappeared, and was never heard from. As he had frequently said, in his delirium, that she was not dead, but gone in a canoe to the Swamp, it is supposed that he wandered there in search of her, and died from exposure.
Charles Lanman, 1847.]
And all night long, by her fire-fly lamp
She paddles her light canoe.—Moore.
It seemed as if we had hardly been asleep an hour when a knock resounded on our door, and a voice from the outside said: “Six o’clock, ladies; breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes, and the carriage will be here at half-past six.”
With half-shut eyes we made our toilet, and we were even too sleepy to enjoy the well-cooked breakfast which was spread for us in the dining-room of the little Suffolk inn where we had taken lodging for the night on our arrival by train from Norfolk.
We were not thoroughly awake and interested in the adventure we were about to undertake, until we found ourselves with guide books and lunch box on the back seat of a springless carriage, the front seat of which was occupied by a fat negro, with a good-natured grin, who answered to the name of “Moses.” We had a three-mile drive before us to the entrance of the Swamp, where we were to meet our guide and take the boat.
The first stage of our journey lay through the main street of a sleepy little Virginia town. The sun had not yet dried the dewdrops, and the old white, pillared houses on either side of the highway, where the great elms overlapped their branches, were still wrapped in the quiet of the early morning. Farther along the street, when we reached the shops, there were more signs of life. Men, who looked like planters of antebellum days, were taking possession of the chairs which occupied the sidewalk and the porch of a small hotel. Negroes and mules and great bunches of bananas were seen on every hand. But we soon left all these behind and were out in the open country. Level, green fields lay on either side of us. It was a lonely road, in spite of the greenness and the sunshine round about us. Occasionally we passed a weather-beaten negro cabin, and once we saw, looming in the distance, a white plantation mansion, stately still, in spite of years of neglect.
It seemed to us that this monotonous road might run on indefinitely, when, suddenly, Moses halted his horses, without apparent cause.
“He’ah we is, I reckon, missus,” said he.
“It can’t be,” returned my traveling companion. “I see nothing like a swamp.” And then we both of us looked closely at the only object in the landscape—a clump of willow bushes, seeming to cover the beginning of a brook that led nowhere in particular.
“Yes’m, he’ah we be su’ah,” reiterated Moses. “An’ he’ah’s Massa Alphonso now,” and he pointed to a light-haired, lank Virginian, who, at that moment, appeared from behind the bushes, and stood leaning on an oar.
The man combined the stateliness of a courtier with the roughness of a hunter, and the grace of his attitude and his blonde beauty led the Spinster to christen him “The Lohengrin of the Swamp.”
The object of this unspoken christening now came forward and introduced himself as our guide. “An’ now, I reckon we might as well be a-startin’, ladies,” said he. “Wait, ma’am, I’ll help you down the bank. It’s mighty steep right here, but there wasn’t no other place nigh so good for hitchin’ the boat. You, Mose, you be back to-night at six o’clock sharp for the ladies. D’ye understand?”
“Yes, sah’, yes, sah’, su’ah,” and Moses clattered away.
Once settled in the boat, the scene changed. We seemed to have entered the beginning of an indefinitely long arbor, covered with grapevines. Of course, there were, in reality, no grapevines, but the willows and the short, bushy trees which completely overhung the four-foot wide channel in which our boat rode made the illusion perfect.
“This is beautiful,” said the Spinster, as she watched the sunshine glinting through the pale-green leaves, still dew-covered, and falling in bright reflections on the face of the dark water beneath.
“It’s fine!” I echoed; “but when do we enter the swamp, guide?”
“We’re in the swamp now, ma’am. It’ll be just like this for ten miles, and then we’ll come to the lake.”
“Why—why,” I almost stammered in my amazement, “I thought the swamp was dark and gloomy, with moss hanging from tall, mournful pine trees, and not a sound to be heard in the wilderness. If it’s like this, with bird-calls and sunshine and bright green leaves, why do they call it ‘dismal’?”
Alphonso smiled at my eagerness. “There’s more to it than shows just at first, ma’am,” he answered. “There are more sad stories about this swamp than all the sunshine can make bright. In the first place this channel we’re riding in right now was dug by chain-gangs of slaves. They say the poor creatures died here in heaps from swamp fever. But that didn’t make any difference to their owners. They was made to dig right into the heart of the swamp to get at the juniper trees. You see they are very valuable—the most valuable wood, I guess, that grows; and they are only to be found here in this swamp. I’ll show you some of them when we come to them. They are tall and slim and straight. No, we shan’t get to any until we are a good bit farther along. I told you the swamp was all alike, but I didn’t mean that exactly. There’s a good bit of difference, the deeper in we get, though you might not notice the difference unless I pointed it out. The trees will be larger and taller, and the bird-calls will be different—more wild, like, and there’ll be owls and herons to be seen, and maybe a stork or two. I hope on account o’ you ladies we shan’t meet no bears, but you see I’ve brought my gun along. There’s always a chance.”
I was more interested in his story of the slave gangs than in the bears. “Do you actually mean,” I asked, “that in former times slaves dug this channel ten miles long to Lake Drummond?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s an actual fact; but they got some advantages from it, too, for while they was digging they got to know the swamp pretty well, and they discovered there was islands hidden away in the center of the swamp, though miles distant from this channel. The slaves kept their discovery to themselves, and later on fugitive slaves made use of it. If they could only reach these islands they were safe from their pursuers, and it’s said that children and even grandchildren of the first runaways were born, and lived, and died on these islands.”
“I don’t see what they had to eat,” suggested the prosaic Spinster.
“You don’t understand, ma’am. These islands are just as dry and nice as any land about here, and the swamp soil is mighty rich, so of course they could just grow anything they had a mind to. Of course they were helped also by friendly slaves on the plantations ’round here, and then they had their cattle and honey to help out.”
“Cattle and honey!” exclaimed the Spinster.
“Yes, ma’am; and they’re here yet. I get all the honey maw and I want to eat from the hives of wild bees here, and most of my beef comes from here, too. Besides, many a quarter I’ve sold. There’s no better eatin’ than the swamp cattle. But a cur’us thing about ’em is that their horns is polished just like ivory. It comes from pickin’ up their livin’ in the swamp and brushin’ constant against tree trunks and reeds and the like.”
“I don’t see how they came here in the first place, and I don’t see what they live on in the second place,” continued the Spinster, glancing at the edges of the swamp on either side of our narrow channel, which seemingly consisted only of masses of dead leaves, dank moss, and reeds.
“Oh, I suppose they was tame cattle in the first place that strayed in here an’ then stayed an’ multiplied just as the slaves did. An’ as for eatin’, you ain’t seen the swamp grass, ma’am; it’s mighty rich.”
“I should think it would be unhealthy here,” said I. “I don’t see how those fugitive slaves flourished to the third generation.”
“Well, no; that’s the queer part of it. It ain’t unhealthy. Those niggers who dug this ditch died of fever, but the swamp itself ain’t unhealthy. On the contrary, the medical folks say it’s a good place for consumptives, and that this swamp water you see here, just as brown as coffee, is good for ’em to drink. There’s been some talk of puttin’ up a hotel on the shore of Lake Drummond for a health resort, and cuttin’ a channel wide enough for a steamboat to run regular, but I hope they won’t get to it in my time. I can’t hope that the Swamp’ll last much longer,” he continued, with a sigh. “You see how black and rich the ground is, and if it was drained and cleared it would be mighty productive. Some capitalists are already talking of doing that and dividing it off into farms.”
This was a plan that pleased the Spinster, and she kept our guide talking on this and kindred topics until the sun, creeping on, stood directly overhead, and it was noon, and we had reached the limit of our journey.
We forgot our prosaic talk of so short a time before when we stood on the shores of Lake Drummond. There lay the magic lake, boldly gray, even in brightest sunshine. Waves which were born from the winds of the wilderness lapped the pebbles at our feet. Although the sun shone warm upon us, it could not overcome the feeling of awe-struck loneliness.
“Do you notice,” said my companion softly, “that even the bird-calls of the swamp have ceased?”
I nodded without speaking. It seemed unfitting to break by words the ghostlike silence that brooded over this water so far from the life and ways of men.
A moment later the guide joined us and brought us down from this high plane by his unconcerned talk.
“Yes,” he said, “this lake’s just on the boundary line between North Carolina and Virginia. We came through ten miles of Virginia swamp this morning to get to it, and we’d have to pole through ten miles of North Carolina swamp if we tried to get out through the other side across the lake there.”
“What sources feed Lake Drummond?” asked the Spinster, shaking herself free from the abstraction that had preceded Alphonso’s entrance upon the scene.
“Nobody knows,” returned the guide, shaking his head. “Nobody knows where it comes from nor where it goes. The black folks around here say that the lake belongs to the devil and the scientific people say it’s of volcanic origin. Perhaps that amounts to the same thing.” Then he changed the subject by briskly demanding if we were ready for lunch.
We ate our luncheon in the rough wooden house, which, with its shake-down beds and pine board tables, served as quarters for the hunters and scientists, sometimes for weeks at a time. Perhaps its limited accommodations satisfied them. We should not have been contented.
We were not sorry to find ourselves once more in our comfortable boat and started on our homeward journey.
“I reckon we don’t get any bears this trip,” remarked Alphonso, after we had progressed a considerable distance.
“Do you often get them?” asked the Spinster.
“Sure, though it’s kind o’ between seasons for them now. They ain’t out lookin’ after berries or honey. I might say that I bag ’em mighty frequent,” he continued. “That is, when I’m hunting by myself. When I’m guidin’ other folks they do more missin’ than hittin’, I’m bound to say,” he added with a laugh.
We had heard the evening before that Alphonso was considered the best shot in Nansemond County, so that we did not doubt his personal prowess, but the humorous twinkle in his eye encouraged us to ask for stories of the misadventures of other people, and we heard various seriocomic tales of grave professors who could draw a trigger and yet miss a bear within six feet of them, or let a bear-cub crawl away unhurt, not from a sense of pity, but from absent-mindedness.
“But I don’t mind so much their missin’ of the game,” said Alphonso, “as I do their wanderin’ off by themselves an’ gettin’ lost in this ’ere swamp. It takes me such a pile o’ walkin’ before I can round ’em up again. I remember once I was fool enough to let a party of three go off huntin’ by themselves. It took me two days before I found ’em again, an’ I can tell you I was gettin’ mighty anxious. My! didn’t they enjoy the wild-cow beefsteak I cooked for ’em that night!”
As he spun his yarns, we hoped to beguile Alphonso into a more personal strain and get him to tell about his own life and his mother to whom he had more than once alluded. Although evidently unwilling to do so, he did tell us enough of his life so that we could piece together his story and account for his opposing characteristics. It seemed that his mother had been an heiress and a belle in the days before the war. She had married a colonel who was killed in one of the first battles, and her only child, Alphonso, had at the age of eleven been thrust out into the world to gain a living for himself and his mother. This he had succeeded in doing, but there had been no time for education—that is, for book-knowledge. Chivalry of manner he had learned from his lady-mother. The wiles of Cupid he had likewise shunned. As he told us, he was an “old bach,” and lived alone with “maw,” and reckoned he’d continue so to do, When we tried to gather more details of his life, he showed himself shy, as well as modest, and parried our most skillful questions. His last evasion led to an incident which proved much to our advantage.
“Look-a-there,” he cried, not answering the Spinster’s last quiz. “Do you see that owl, ma’am, perched on that dead branch in the top of that pine tree? He’s the largest I’ve seen this year. Would you like him? He’d make a mighty nice specimen in case you’re collectin’.”
The Spinster’s eye and mine met in consultation. The decision was unanimous, and an instant later the guide’s unerring rifle rang out and the owl was fluttering in the water dead. He was picked up and his plumage smoothed, and he was carefully bestowed under one of the boat seats. The small remaining portion of our journey was given up to talk about our new possession and how he should ultimately be disposed of, and in this manner our day with Alphonso, “the Lohengrin of the Swamp,” drew to a close. We were met at the appointed time and place by fat Moses with the springless carriage. Alphonso bade us a courteous adieu, again leaning against his oar in the attitude of the morning.
Moses drove us back to the station at a rapid pace, chuckling the while at our owl which lay on the seat beside him and which he said “looked just like de debbil.” We arrived at the station in time to procure a box for our owl, and then boarding the train arrived safely in Norfolk that night.
Louise E. Catlin.
Evening Post, N. Y.
MISCELLANEA OF AMERICAN HISTORY:
A REFERENCE LIST
The short list following is partly supplemental to Larned’s Literature of American History; its regular A. L. A. continuations; the various cumulative indexes to periodicals and Miss Kroeger’s Guide to reference books (q. v.). This little collection, which may be extended, is intended merely ta present some clews to additional means of historical research.
KEY:— 010 Bibliography (general). 017 Catalogs (sale). 580 Botany (ancient America). 913 Antiquities. 920 Biography. 929 Genealogy. 973 History (U. S.).