Thus passed
my first night in the great swamps of the
Waccamaw River.
The negro cook gave us an early breakfast of
bacon, sweet potatoes, and corn bread. The
squire again looked round for the bottle, and
again found nothing but emptiness. He helped
me to carry my canoe along the unsteady footing
of the dark swamp to the lower side of the
raft of logs, and warmly pressed my hand as he
whispered: "My dear B____, I shall think of
you until you get past those dreadful 'wretches.'
Keep an eye on your little boat, or they'll devil
you."
Propelled by my double paddle, the canoe
seemed to fly through the great forest that rose
with its tall trunks and weird, moss-draped
arms, out of the water. The owls were still
hooting. Indeed, the dolorous voice of this bird
of darkness sounded through the heavy woods
at intervals throughout the day. I seemed to
have left the real world behind me, and to have
entered upon a landless region of sky, trees, and
water.
"Beware of the cut-offs," said Hall, before I
left. Only the Crackers and shingle-makers
know them. If followed, they would save you
many a mile, but every opening through the
swamp is not a cut-off. Keep to the main
stream, though it be more crooked and longer.
If you take to the cut-offs, you may get into
passages that will lead you off into the swamps
and into interior bayous, from which you will
never emerge. Men have starved to death in
such places."
So I followed the winding stream, which
turned back upon itself, running north and south,
and east and west, as if trying to box the
compass by following the sun in its revolution. After
paddling down one bend, I could toss a stick
through the trees into the stream where the canoe
had cleaved its waters a quarter of a mile
behind me.
The thought of what I should do in this
landless region if my frail shell, in its rapid flight to
the sea, happened to be pierced by a snag, was,
to say the least, not a comforting one. On what
could I stand to repair it? To climb a tree
seemed, in such a case, the only resource; and
then what anxious waiting there would be for
some cypress-shingle maker, in his dug-out
canoe, to come to the rescue, and take the traveller
from his dangerous lodgings between heaven and
earth; or it might be that no one would pass that
way, and the weary waiting would be even unto
death.
