The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1884-02-07
The Big Arkansas swamp.


The railway track lay through the
swamp Of oil swamps. We ran into the
swamp at daylight in the morning, and
We were in it till ten o'clock. 90 con-
clude It must be seventy.five miles
broad. It Il not ono big bog of utterly
worthless land, nninhabited and desc
late: it has some widely separated bits
Of arabic land, ON which settlers live.
and this makes it so much the more
lonely and depressing of these poor
wretches who are trying to wiring the
trifle which they consider living"
out of the shiny soil. The best building
all through the swamp was log cabin,
and there were Jew of them. There
were fields Of cotton, surrounded by
miles of forest aud swamp. There was
occasionally q station; board shsnty,
with half dozen walking cofpses lean
ing against the neighboring fence,
looking at the train--natjyes
who never wore suit of store clothes
men with giant and yellow faces and
lank forms, and carrotty hair brushing
their shoulders, their chins painted with
tobacco. juice-li5elous caricactures OF
human beings. Seventy-five miles We
went through this desolate, dismal
swamp, and the Recollection of it sticks
to me like nightmare. ! thought Dick.
ems description of Eden" in martin
Chuzzlewit." must be q r1etty good ac-
count of this Arkansas swamp, so l
hunted up a copy, to see whether /
couldn't borrow little description. But
Eden was sanitarlum set down in the
midst of flower garden compared with
the great swamp Of Arkansas. should
like to see Mark Tapley after three
months residence in this place, will,
his hair down over his neck, his cheeks
hollow Except the one tina: was wad-
ded out with tobacco), his
skin as yellow as lemon, his eyes as full
of expression as two glass marbles; if he
kept up his jolli,y through three months
in Eastern Arkansas, then was he in
deed the brave old Mark we all believe
him. tut I don't see a chance Of any
New Yorker getting an adequate descrip-
ton of this terrible swamp unless he
goes up to BELLEVUE hospital, sits down
beside some fellow in the widest stages
Of deliriur, tremens, and gets him to de-
scribe it. The snakes; lizards, frogs, and
all the rest of the jim,jam menagerie
NOulu COulO III WHY JtO. ~ l. uhu W
compare it with something, it should b.
with one of the weird scenes Of the Black
Crook, for the long shaggy moss hang
ing FROM tree-trunks and branches, gives
the place sort of develish aspect; and
the ghosts of people occasionally
-een would answer we'll
for the demons, Fair woman,
the joy of life. is represented here by
yellow crones sitting at the doors Of log
cabins, smoking corn-cob pipes, watch
ing two or three dyspeI c pigs revel in
the mud in the front yard. When the
pigs want little variety, they go and
scratch their backs against the corner
of the cabin. When the woman wants
variety, she lays down her pipe and
rubs her guma with snuff. If ANYTHING
in the wo:l Id could make one laugh, in
going through such an inundated ceme-
'ery as this, it would be to think of that
tremendous lie in our great and glorious
Declaration that call men are created
free and eQual!' After seeing this
swamp, never will be able to sympa-
thize any more with the poor Of New
York who are comfortable and we'll fixed.
When have any sympathy to spare it
will be for the poor wretches who live
in the great swamp Of Arkansaw.-Hot
Springs, Ark, Corr. N. Y. lines.