The Litchfield County post., 1827-06-14


 wonderful accounts are given of the immense quantities of grapes that ripen on the sand 1 plains of the sources of Red River. The hunters assert that they are richer than any cultivated grape. l At distance of mile or two from the river, there are, at first, thick cane brakes, then series of lakes, exactly resembling the ] river in their points and bends, and in the colour of its waters. ThesesIakes are cover ed with the large leaves, and in the proper { season, the nymphen nelumbo,' the largest 1 and most splendid flower I have ever seen. I have seen them the size of the crown of hat ; the external leaves of the most brilliant white and the interior of very beautiful yellow. These lakes are SO en- ] tirely covered with the conical leaves, of the size of parasOl, and a smaller class of aquatic plant, of the same form of leaves, 1 but with yellow flower, that bird might walk sfrom. shore to shore, without dipping its feet in water; and these plants rise from all depths of water, up to ten feet. 1 Beyond these lakes there are immense swamps of cypress. which swamps consti- stitute vast portion of the inundated lands otthe Mississippi and its waters. No prospect on earth can be more gloomy. The po- etic Styxs or Acheron had not greater union of dismal circumstances. Well may the cypress have been esteemed funeral and lugubrious tree. When the tree has shed its leaves, for it is deciduous, cy- press swamp, with its countless interlaced 1 branches, of hoary grey, has an aspect of desolation and death, that often as have been impressed with it, cannot de- scbe. In Summer, it's fine, short, and ] deep green leaves invest these hoary branches with drapery of crape.
 The water in which they grow is vast dead level, two or three feet deep, still leav- ing the innumerable cypress " knees," as they are called, resembling circular beehives. l throwing their points above the waters. This water is covered with thick coat of green matter, resembling green buff velvet. The mosquitoes swarm above the water in count less millions. A very frequent adjunct to this horrible scenery, is the moccassin snake, with his huge scaly body, lying in folds upon the side of a cypress knee and if you ap- proach too ncar lazy and reckless as he is, he throws the upper jaw of his huge mouth al- most back to his neck, giving you ample warning ofhis ability to defend himself travelled forty miles along this river swamp, and a considerable part of the way on the edge of it in which the horse sunk at every step, half way up to his knees. was envel- oped for the whole distance with cloud of mosquitoes. Like the ancient Avernus, do not femember to have seen a single bird in the whole distance, except the blue jay. Nothing interrupted the death like silence, but the hum of mosquitoes. 1, There cannot be well immagined another l feature to the bloom of these vast and dismal forests, to finish this kind of landscape more in keeping with the rest, than the long moss, or Spanish beard. This funeral drapery at taches itself to the cypress in preference to any other tree. There is not, that I know, an object in nature which produces such a number of sepuschral images as the view of the cypress forests, all shagged, dark, and enveIoped in the hanging festoons of moss. If you would inspire an inhabitant of New England, possessed of the customary portion of feeling, with the degree of home sickness. which would strike to the heart, transfer him instantly from the hill and dale, the bracing air SU~Varied scenery ofthe north, to the cypress swamps of the south, that are covered with the long moss.
 This curious appendage to the trees is first visible in the cypress swamps at about SS de- grees and is seen thence to the Gulf. It IS the constant accompaniment of the trees in deep bottoms and swampy lands, and seems ! to be an indication of the degree of humidity in the atmosphere. Ihave observed, that in dry and hly pine woods. it reappears as you approach bOttOmssatreams, and swamps. have remarked, too, that where it so com pleteIy enveIops the cypress, as to show no- thing but the festoons of the dark grey moss, other trees are wholly free from it. It seems less inclined to attach itselfto the cotton wood tree, than to any other.
 This moss is plant efthe parasiticai spe- cies, being popagated by seed, which forms in capsule that is preceded bya very min ute but beautiful purple flower. Although, wheh the trees that have cast their leaves are covered with it. they look as if they were dead, yet the moss will not live long on dead tree. It is well known that this moss, when managed by process like that of preparing hemp or flax, separates from its bark, and the black fibre that remains is not unlike horse hair, elastic, incorruptble, and an admi- rable and cheap article for mattresses. of which are formed most of the beds of the Southern people of this region"
 From the Charleston Observer.
 FIVE AND TWENTY YEARS AGO.