The democrat. [volume] (Weston, W. Va.) 1868-1874, 1869-11-15
THE DISMAL SWAMP.
Its History and MykterY.

presslve for Inspiration. The great Dis
NAL Swamp is on frel The flames are
sweeping its border line for full ten miles
from east to west, devouring ito under
wood and burning tue 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.
neuse horrid serpent, commencing nine
miles back Of Norfolk and as far from the
Bay coast, and reaching 80 miles into the
borders Of North Carolina.
To all the inhabitants Of Southern Vir-
ginis living around it, dark borders, the
Dismal Swamp has fame like that Of a
lalf-explored oatacomb. Ask one Of tho
unimaginative residents Of the neighbor.
hood, who has never heard Of Tom Moore,
about this huge, half-romsntic wilderness,
and bis description ends with tie state.
ment that it is an ugly place, iof which he
know, little and wishes be knew less, as
he has on some occasion mired in it waist
deep, duck-shootingin its margin.
Long ago, in the earliest history Of the
country, an adventurous hunter pressed
through to the centre Of this wilderness,
and discovered a vast sheet Of water lying
within its mysterious depth. The water
took the hunters name, since xhen Lake
,Drummond has become known to geo.
graphical and other fame. In 1904, tho
Irish. Tom Moore-the diminative, poetic,
Jump up and kiss me, Tom" Of the Ia.
dies-yisited Norfolk. and heard there
the traditional stories OF q young man,
who, on the death Of the girl he loved,
lost bis reason.
10 the lovers rawlings, he often said abe
was not dead, but gone to the Dismal
Swamp. lie suddenly disappeared, and
bis friends never afterwards heard Of him,
and i was surnised tho! he had wandered
into these gloomy morasses and persisted.
Moore wrote upon tie incident oftho story
the weird, melancholy ballad oommen-
oipg,aso5 .sali5 5,H :. =
"They made her 8 grave too cold aad damp
For sodl 80 warm and truc. tH 20 ,
And she's gone to the. Lake OF tho Dismal
sI Swamp 81 4.ls 1t. q 1 ~:
Where all night long by her Gre ay lamp,
She paddles her light canoe. ~, u.
,.And her FREELY lamp soon shall SEQ. -
And her paddle soon shall hear.
Long and loving our life shall be,
And III hide the maid In acyprcss tree,
When the footsteps Of death are near" a
and made the fame Of the spot Is lasting
% bis own. There is no more significant
instance Of the power Of genius to bestow
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. hindsring passage way
and oheokmisibg corn. fields. II is as fa-
milisr to-day, with the mysterious, 70.
mantle interest Of Moors's poem to the
worlds reading public as the Dead Sea or
the shadows Of the Broken.
What there is Of the Dismal Swamp to
the physical eye, is vast sedgy forest Of
cypress, juniper, oak, gum and pine trees.
its gloomy recesses filled With pools and
swamps oycrgrown with roeds and shrub.
berry and tangled wild vine.
To-day the Dismal Swamp canal russ
through il from north 70 south, and the
Portsmouth and Roanoke railway crosses
its northern borders, Before the war,
the romantic sentiment had built upon
Drummoud Lake, near the centre Of the
swamp, hotel, which was considered a
sort Of Gretna Green for tho contamination
Of runaway matches. ,iaB
Nature, as Horace woald say, is pretty
vellrun out Of tho place with fork-or
canals and railroad iron. But as you ride
through the dreary underwood Of The for
est in skif, you can easily conceive yet
that the dsmsnds Of Southern civilization,
for several centuries, will hardly claim
tue Dismal Swamp for agriculture.
FrRsr 'Lo7l-N . ono q the Oldest
points Of difference between man and wo-
man that woman has no First Love. The
long alphabet u her affections is without
any distinct end or beginning; she
mounts BY inscnsible gradations from dolls
and kittens and pet brothers to the senith
ofpsssion, to descend by the same insen-
sible gradasions from tlis zenith If passion
through pet brothers 10 tabby cats.
There Is no such event as first kiss
forms IN a boys life to mark for woman
the transition from girlhoodto the sudden
maturity Of passion; she has been kissing.
purring, fondling and petting from her
cradle, and she will pet, iondle, purr and
kiss 10. her. grave. Love, IN the tech meal
sense Of the word, is, With her, little more
than an intensifying Of her ordinary life
There is nov, no picture, but the colors
arc for the while little heightened and
tho tones raised. Presently the vividncss
Of color will fade again, and the cool grave
lower the tone, and the passion Of life will
have died away. But there will bs no
definite moment at which one could fairly
say that love came or went. A girl who
is not whispering in lovers ear will a.
ways say frankly enough that she never
knew what it was not to be in lovo.
There is one obvious deduction which she
forgets to draw, that there never can DO q
time when she can know whatit y to be