River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1884-02-07
The Bic Arkansas Swann

The railway track lay through the
swamp Of all swamps. We ran into the
swamp at daylight in the morning, and
We were in it till ten o'clock, SO i con-
elude it must be seyenty.five miles
broad. It's not one big bog Of utterly
worthless land, uninhabited 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
tribe which they consider living"
out Of the shiny soil. The best building
ali through the swamp was log cabin,
and there were few of them. There
were fields of cotton, surrounded By
miles Of forest and swamp. There was
occasionally station, a board shanty,
with half dozen walking corpses lean
ing against the neighboring fence,
looking at the train--natiges
who never wore suit of store clothes
or ate good square meal in their lives;
men with guant and yellow faces and
lanlc forms, and carroity hair brushing
their shoulders, their chins painted With
tobacco iuice-libelous caricactures of
human beings. Seyenty-five miles we
went through this desolate, dismal
swamp, and the Recollection gift sticks
10 me like a nightmare. ] thought Dick
ems description of Eden" in Martin
Chuzzlewit,n must be a pretty good ac-
count of this Arkansas swamp, so /
hunted up a copy, to see whether |
couldn't borrow a little description. But
Eden was sanitarIum set down in the
midst of D flower garden compared with
The great swamp Of Arkansas. | should
like to see Mark Tapley after three
months residence in this place, with
his hair down over his neck, his cheeks
hollow Except the one that was wad-
ded out with tobacco, lis
skin as yellow as lemon, his eyes as full
Of expression as two glass marbles; if he
kept up his iollity through three months
in Eastern Arkansas, then was he IN
deed the brave old Mark we all believe
him. Tut | don't see a chance OF any
New Yorker getting adequate descrip-
lion of this terrible swamp unless he
roes up to BELLEVUE hospital, sits down
beside some fellow in the widest stages
Of delirium tremens, and gets him to de-
scribe il. The snakes. lizards, frogs, and
all the rest of the iim-lam menagerie
would come in very pat If had to
compare it with something, it should be
with one of the weird scenes ofthe Black
Crook, for the long shaggy moss hang
ing from tree-trunks aud branches, gives
the place sort of develish aspect; and
the ghosts of people occasionally
seen 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 dyspeptic 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 woi Id could make one laugh, in
going through such an inundated ceae-
lery as this, it would be to think OF that
tremendous lie in our great and glorious
Declaration that 'all men are created
free and Ic9nalp' After seeing this
swamp, | never will be able to sympa-
thize any more with the poor of New
York who are comfortable and well fixed
When 1 have any sympathy to spare it
will be Tor the poor wretches who live
in the great swamp of Arkansaw.-Hot
Springs, Ark, Corr. n. Y. lines.