The democrat. [volume] (Weston, W. Va.) 1868-1874, 1869-11-15
TIE DISMAL SWANIP.
Its History and Mystery.

Inc ar, IN circuit Of so miles, If
Tiled With odosOuS vapor almost too op-
pTeaslvc for inspiration. The great Dis
NAL Swamp is on 6rel The flames are
sweeping its border line for full ten miles
from cast to west, deTouriDg its under
wood and burning the roots of its giant
Expresses two feet under the soil. The
area of this wilderness is 800 square
miles. Its track lies like that Of an i'm
meose horrid serpent, commencing nine
miles back Of Norfolk AID Rs f.- from the
bay coast, and reaching 30 miles into the
borders Of North Carolina.
To all the inhabitants of Southern Vir-
gina living around its dark borders, the
Dismal Swamp has fame like that Of a
lia!t-ezpIoEed catacomb. Ask one Of the
unlmagirative residents Of the noighbor-
hood, who has never heard Of Tom Moore,
about this huge. half-romautic wilderness,
and his description ends with the state
mens that it is an ugly place. of which he
knows little and wishes he knew less, as
he has on some occasion mired in it waist
deep, duck-shoOting in its margin.
Long ago, in the earliest history of the
country, an adventurous hunter pressed
through to the centre of this wilderness,
and discovered vast sheet Of water lying
within its mysterious depth. The water
took the hunters name, since when Lake
Drummond has become known to geo
graphical and other fame. In 1904, the
Irish Tom MOore-the diminative, poetic,
Jump up and kiss me, Tom," Of the Ia
dies-visited Norfolk. and heard there
the traditional stories Of a young man,
who. on the death of the girl be loved,
lost his reason.
10 the lovers rawlings, he often said she
was not dead, but gone to the Dismal
Swamp. lie suddenly disappeared, and
bis friends never afterwards heard of him,
and it was surnised TIA: he had wandered
into these gloomy morssses and persisted
Moore wrote upon tie incident of TIC story
the weird, melancholy ballad common.
cling,
They made her grave too cold aad damp
For soLl 50 warm and true.
And she's gone to the Lake Of the Dismal
Swamp,
Who're al night long by her FIRE fly lamp,
She paddles her light canoe.
"And her freely lamp soon shall sec.
and her paddle soon shall hear.
Long and loving oUr life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid In o cypress trec,
When the footsteps Of death are near"
and made the fame of the spot as lasting
as his own. There is no more significant
instance of the power of genius TO bes.ow
Immortality upon whatever it touches than
this. Had it not been for Moore's ballad
the Dismal Swamp would never have been
known, save around its locality, as FIRST
class quagmirc, hindering passage way
and Checkmasing corn-6elds. It Is as "a,
miliar to-day, with the mysterious, 70.
mantle interest of Moore's poem to the
worlds reading public as the Dead Sea o,
the shadows Of the Broken.
W nat There Is OF the Dismal Swamp t
the physical eye, is vast Sedgy forest o.
cypress, juniper, oak, gum and pine trees,
its gloomy recesses filed With pools and
swamps oycrgrown with reeds and shrub.
berry and tangled wild vine.
To-day the Dismal Swamp canal ruul
through it from north to south, and the
Portsmouth and Roanoke railway crosses
its northern borders. Before the war,
the romantic sentiment had built upor
Drummoud Lake, near the centre of the
swamp, hotel, which was considered {
sort Of Gretna Green for the contamination
of runaway matches.
Nature, as Horace would say, is pretty
well'ruu out Of tho place with fork-or
canals a1d railroad iron. But as you ride
through the drcary underwood of the for.
est in skiff, you can easily conceive gel
that the demands Of Southern civilization,
for several centuries, will hardly claim
the Dismal Swamp for agriculture.
FrRsr LovR.-It is one Of the Oldest
points Of difference between man and NO.
man that woman has no First Love. The
long alphabet Of her affections is without
any distinct end or beginning; she
mounts BY insensible gradstions from dolls
and kittens and pet brothers to the zenith
ofpassion, to descend by the same iusen.
sible gradatiOns from tho zenith Of passion
through pet brothers to tabby cats
There is no such event as a first kis.
forms in boys life to mark for woman
the transition from girlhood to the sudder
maturity Of passion; she has been kissing
purring, fondling and petting from hel
cradle, and she will pet, iordle, purr and
kiss to her grave. Love, IN the technical
sense Of the word, is, with her, little more
than m intenGifying of her ordinary life
There is now no picture, but the color.
arc for the while little heightened and
the tones raised. Presently the vividnesl
of color will fade again, and the cool grave
lower the tone, and the passion of life will
have died away. But there will be nj
definite moment at which one could fairly
cav 4hot love cotpo or ,vaDk 4 1;rl nj "A