The Litchfield County post. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1826-1829, 1826-10-24

I went on board my boat at tue approaen
ofnieh,; and when to get rid Ofmy thoughts,
I laid me down in my narrow and swelter-
inn birth. millions of musquetoes raised
their disrl;.l hum, and settled on my face.
Drive, away the first thousand, stated with
blood. and another thousand succeeds and,
{" in that war there is no discharge" A
hundred owls, perchcd in the deep swamp,
in allsthe tones ofscrcaming, hooting, grun- |
ting, and in every note, from the wall of an
infant, 10 the growl of a bear, sing your
reqHieni.
You rise from sleep attained under
such auspices, and crawl up the greasy
hunks to the cabins Of the wood-cutters.-
Yeasee here inhabitants of an appearance.
and countenance in full keeping with the
Surrounding scenery. There is scacely
one of them but what has a monstrous pro-
tuberance in the stomach, sufficiently OBJ
vious to the eye, vnigarly called an "ague-
cake "a yellowish white complexion, fine
" described in the language of the country,
"tallowsface There is an indescribable
Transparency Of the skin, which seems to
indicate water between the cuticle and the
flesh. Eyes, preternaturally rolling and
brilliant, glare in the centre of large,
morbid circle, in which the hues of red,
black and yellow are mixed. The small
children bear all these dismal markings of
the climate in miniature. Dirty and rag
ged, as mischievous as they are deformed,
they roll about upon the slippery clay with
an agility and alertness, from their appear |
ance altogether incredible for you would
suppose them too feeble and clumsy to
move. There is something unique, and
cadaverous in the persons Of both old and
Young. You would suppose that the grave
was dug for them. But the more slender
and uncertain their hold of life, the more
gaily they seem to enjoy it. They laugh,
and shout, and drink and blaspheme, and
utter their tale of obsceneity, or, it may be
of murder, with bacchanalian joyoasness.-
Shut your eyes, and you would suppose
yourself in the midst of the merriest group
in the world. Open them, and look upon
the laughers, and see the strange fire of
their eye, and you would almost believe
the chilling stories of the Vampires.
The first evening of my arrival iii these
waters found us at the point where the
Black, Red, and Tensas rivers mingle their
waters in an immense swamp, cheered by
the note of no bird of song, unenlivened
by the focks of healthful and edible fowls,
as thegeese, ducks, and swans, and only VOC
cal with the shrll notes of the Jay, the
cawing Of crows, and the wheeling flight
of numberless carrion vultures, that prey
on the dead fish that float to the shores.-
On the verge of the bank above where we
lay, and with a little opening in the dead
forest, was family, such as have descri-
bed. An inhabitant of such a cabin who
lasts two years, may be thought fortunate
and long-lived. They gave me thrilling
anecdotes, if such they may be called, of
the tenants of two fresh graves, that mo-
ticed in the little melon garden by the cab
in. They were of that class of outlawed,
tn ,usands up and down the course of the
Mississippi. The owner of the cabin was
a wood-cutter for tho steamboats,, and had |
employed these men to aid him. They |
had cut wood, drunk whiskey, gambled, and
fought, and gouged |; and the women told |
us, that they had been " charming funny
men." But, I use her words, they took |
the ague, had the fever, and the ague-cake,
and grew sullen, and would not eat, and
did not care for their whiskeys We sent
Tor an old French hunter, to, bring them
some good herbs, but before he came, they
would not live any longer, and SO they
died. g&
The wife and the mother in this family |
had once, I dare say, been pretty. She
had had the agus four years in succession,
and now had the swelling, the flthiness,
the brilliant eye, the flippant lounge, and
ran on from story to story with more than
the garrulity of an old French woman
On an emergency, presume she could
have handled the dirk with dexterity.-
She informed me, that for month in the
preceding spring they had been overflow
ed, and she was in the midst of flowed
swamp, thirty miles in diameter. They
built house on a raft of logs fastened to-
\ gether, and secured from floating away
viii, grape vines. On this raft was sta
toned the family, oxen, pigs, dogs, chick
ems, and all. They had barrel Of whis-
key to keep up theirspirits. Each ofthese
logs was covered with red slime, and as
slippery as if creased. And she told US
that the logs often brought up the big stom-
aches Of her clumsy children, and that it
was hard to keep their shirts clean, as they
were the only article of dress they wore
81 She took me for cotton-planter, and said,
Now, YOU planters have but one house.