in its bow was agbl of fifteen, Of iair face, beautiful black eyea, and deamie
manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was thrown to kini, and tha
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 smaUest little canoe and handled it with ail ttTde^ of aToid
voyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child
and laughed when asked if she were afraid. She had been raided ia 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 akteen
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 ia
a fiat.
From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen Hulas, there i» not a spot
of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles th»*« ia
nothing but the river's flood. Black Eiver had risen during Thursday, the
23rd, If inches, and was going up at night stilL As we progress m 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 tie
gloom, almost every living thing seems to have departed, and not a whisUtt
of a bird nor the bark of the squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Soeoe-
times a morose gar will throw his tail aloft and disappear in &e mar but
beyond this everything is quiet—the quiet of dissolution, Boro tfce iivtsr
floats now a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then a cluster of neatly apik
fence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded fc^ 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 tiw
water and despoiled of thiR ornament.
At dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place *kiaigsy4e the wooda WE*
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 foraat aad river,
making- a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscape stady, conld
an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion of the engines *»•**
ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stilled, and the enveiopiEg
silence closed upon us, and such silence it was I Usually in a forest at Bight
one can hear the piping- of frogs, the hum of insects, or the dropp&ag <rf
limbs; but here nature was dumb. The dark recesses, those ftieles into tfeie
cathedral, gave forth no sound, and even the ripplinga of the fa^TF^ di*
away.
At daylight Friday morning all hand* were up, asd up the Black w»