Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet

by Frederick Marryat

Some officers of the United States army and land surveyors, sent on the Red River by the government at Washington for a month, took up their residence at Captain Finn’s. One day, when the conversation had fallen upon the cawana, it was resolved that a trial should be made to ascertain the strength of the animal. A heavy iron hand-pike was transformed by a blacksmith into a large hook, which was fixed to an iron chain belonging to the anchor of a small-boat, and as that extraordinary fishing-tackle was not of a sufficient length, they added to it a hawser, forty fathoms in length and of the size of a woman’s wrist. The hook was baited with a lamb a few days old, and thrown into a deep hole ten yards from the shore, where Captain Finn knew that one of the monsters was located; the extremity of the hawser was made fast to an old cotton-tree.

Late in the evening of the second day, and as the rain poured down in torrents, a negro slave ran to the house to announce that the bait had been taken, and every one rushed to the river side. They saw that, in fact, the hawser was in a state of tension, but the weather being too bad to do any thing that evening, they put it off till the next morning.

A stout horse was procured, who soon dragged the hawser from the water till the chain became visible, but all further attempts of the animal were in vain; after the most strenuous exertion, the horse could not conquer the resistance or gain a single inch. The visitors were puzzled, and Finn then ordered one of the negroes to bring a couple of powerful oxen, yoked to a gill, employed to drag out the stumps of old trees. For many minutes the oxen were lashed and goaded in vain; every yarn of the hawser was strained to the utmost, till, at last, the two brutes, uniting all their strength in one vigorous and final pull, it was dragged from the water, but the monster had escaped. The hook had straightened and to its barb were attached pieces of thick bones and cartilages, which must have belonged to the palate of the monster.

The unfortunate traveller has but little chance of escaping with life, if, from want of experience, he is foundered in the swampy cane-brakes. When the horse sinks and the rider leaves the saddle, the only thing he can do is to return back upon his track; but let him beware of these solitary small patches of briars, generally three or four yards in circumference, which are spread here and there on the edges of the cane-brakes, for there he will meet with deadly reptiles and snakes unknown in the prairies; such as the grey-ringed water mocassin, the brown viper, the black congo with red head and the copper head, all of whom congregate and it may be said make their nests in these little dry oases, and their bite is followed by instantaneous death.

These are the dangers attending travellers in the swamps, but there are many others to be undergone in crossing lagoons, rivers, or small lakes. All the streams, tributaries of the Sabine and of the Red River below the great bend (which is twenty miles north of the Lost Prairie), have swampy banks and muddy bottoms, and are impassable when the water is too low to permit the horses to swim. Some of these streams have ferries, and some lagoons have floating bridges in the neighbourhood of the plantations; but as it is a new country, where government has as yet done nothing, these conveniences are private property, and the owner of a ferry, not being bound by a contract, ferries only when he chooses and at the price he wishes to command.

I will relate a circumstance which will enable the reader to understand the nature of the country, and the difficulties of overland travelling in Texas. The great Sulphur Fork is a tributary of the Red River, and it is one of the most dangerous. Its approach can only be made on both sides through belts of swampy cane-brakes, ten miles in breadth, and so difficult to travel over, that the length of the two swamps, short as it is, cannot be passed by a fresh and strong horse in less than fourteen hours. At just half-way of this painful journey the river is to be passed, and this cannot be done without a ferry, for the moment you leave the canes, the shallow water begins, and the bottom is so soft, that any object touching it must sink to a depth of several fathoms. Till 1834, no white man lived in that district, and the Indians resorted to it only during the shooting season, always on foot and invariably provided with half-a-dozen of canoes on each side of the stream for their own use or for the benefit of travellers. The Texians are not so provident nor so hospitable.

As the white population increased in that part of the country, a man of the name of Gibson erected a hut on the southern bank of the stream, constructed a flat-boat, and began ferrying over at the rate of three dollars a head. As the immigration was very extensive, Gibson soon grew independent, and he entered into a kind of partnership with the free bands which were already organised. One day, about noon, a land speculator presented himself on the other side of the river, and called for the ferry. At that moment the sky was covered with dark and heavy clouds, and flashes of lightning succeeded each other in every direction; in fact, every thing proved that the evening would not pass without one of those dreadful storms so common in that country during the months of April and May. Gibson soon appeared in his boat, but instead of casting it loose, he entered into a conversation.

“Where do you come from, eh?”

“From the settlements,” answered the stranger.

“You’ve a ticklish, muddish kind of a river to pass.”