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CHAPTER XXX.

SKETCHES BY THE WAY.

IT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming fall, everywhere,
and very frequently more than fall, the waters pouring out over the
land, flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in
places, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work

A LIGHT KEEPEB.
gone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means
and a weakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous
one;—hundreds of miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in
water three feet deep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for
miles without farm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which