Voyage of The Paper Canoe [75]
-- three in a bed to-night. I'm bound to sleep with him to-night. Hall, where's the bottle?"
I now retired to the back room, and, without undressing, planted myself on the side of the bed next the wall. Sleep was, however, an unattainable luxury, with the squire's voice in the next room, as he told how the country was going to the dogs, because "niggers and white folks wouldn't respect the laws. It took half a man's time to larn it to 'em, and much thanks he ever got by setting everybody to rights." He wound up by lecturing Hall for being so temperate, his diligent search in all directions for bottles or jugs being rewarded by finding them filled with unsatisfactory emptiness.
He then tumbled into the centre of the bed, crowding me close against the wall. Poor Hall, having the outside left to him, spent the night in exercising his brain and muscles in vain attempts to keep in his bed; for when his Majesty of the law put his arms akimbo, the traveller went to the wall, and the host to the floor. 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.
But sounds now reached my ears that made me feel that I was not quite alone in this desolate swamp. The gray squirrels scolded among the tree-tops; robins, the brown thrush, and a large black woodpecker with his bright red head, each reminded me of Him without whose notice not a sparrow falleth to the ground.
Ten miles of this black current were passed over, when the first signs of civilization appeared, in the shape of a sombre-looking, two-storied house, located upon a point of the mainland which entered the swamp on the left shore of the river. At this point the river widened to five or six rods, and at intervals land appeared a few inches above the water. Wherever the pine land touched the
I now retired to the back room, and, without undressing, planted myself on the side of the bed next the wall. Sleep was, however, an unattainable luxury, with the squire's voice in the next room, as he told how the country was going to the dogs, because "niggers and white folks wouldn't respect the laws. It took half a man's time to larn it to 'em, and much thanks he ever got by setting everybody to rights." He wound up by lecturing Hall for being so temperate, his diligent search in all directions for bottles or jugs being rewarded by finding them filled with unsatisfactory emptiness.
He then tumbled into the centre of the bed, crowding me close against the wall. Poor Hall, having the outside left to him, spent the night in exercising his brain and muscles in vain attempts to keep in his bed; for when his Majesty of the law put his arms akimbo, the traveller went to the wall, and the host to the floor. 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.
But sounds now reached my ears that made me feel that I was not quite alone in this desolate swamp. The gray squirrels scolded among the tree-tops; robins, the brown thrush, and a large black woodpecker with his bright red head, each reminded me of Him without whose notice not a sparrow falleth to the ground.
Ten miles of this black current were passed over, when the first signs of civilization appeared, in the shape of a sombre-looking, two-storied house, located upon a point of the mainland which entered the swamp on the left shore of the river. At this point the river widened to five or six rods, and at intervals land appeared a few inches above the water. Wherever the pine land touched the