"'Tis a wild spot, and hath a gloomy look;
The bird sings never merrily in the trees,
And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth
Spreads poisonously 'round, with power to taint
With blustering dews the thoughtless hand that dares
To penetrate the covert."
—W. Gillmore Simms.
I returned to Norfolk toward evening. It was Saturday night, and as Monday would be the opening of the Christmas holidays, I met great numbers of negroes on the road, going to the country to spend their week of leisure with their friends on the plantations of their masters. They all appeared to be happy and musical as larks, and made the forest ring with their joyous laugh and melodious songs. All carried a bundle, or a basket filled with presents for their friends. Some had new hats, and others garments; others were carrying various knickknacks and fire-crackers, and a few of the men were "toting" a little too much "fire-water." From the youngest, to the oldest who rode in mule-carts, all faces beamed with the joy of the hour.
* The Dismal Swamp lies partly in Virginia and partly in North Carolina. Its extent from north to south is about thirty miles, and from east to west about ten miles. No less than five navigable streams and several creeks have their rise in it. It is made subservient to the wants of commerce, by furnishing the raw material for an immense quantity of shingles and other juniper lumber. The Dismal Swamp Canal runs through it from north to south, and the Portsmouth and Roanoke railway passes aeross five miles of its northern border. The canal has a stage-road running parallel with it. extending from Deep Creek to Elizabeth.
** Drummond's Lake, so called after a hunter of that name who discovered it, is near the center of the swamp. A hotel has been ereeted upon its shore, and is a place of considerable resort. Being on the line between Virginia and North Carolina, it is a sort of Gretna Green where "runaway matches" are consummated. Tradition tells of a young man who, on the death of the girl he loved, lost his reason. He suddenly disappeared, and his friends never heard of him afterward. In his ravings he often said she was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, and it is supposed he wandered into its gloomy morasses and perished. Moore, who visited Norfolk in 1804, on hearing this tradition, wrote his touching ballad, commencing,