The Northern Pacific farmer., 1884-02-07
The Big Arkansas Swamp.

The railway track lay through the
swamp of all swamps. We.ran into the
swamp at daylight infthe morning, and
we were in it till ten o'clock, SO co,,:
clude it must be seventy five miles
broad. 1t is 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
trile which they consider -" living"
out of the shiny soil. The best building
all through the swamp was a log cabin,
and there were few of them. There
were fields of cotton, surrounded by
miles of forest and swamp. There was
occasionally station, board shanty,
with half dozen walking corpses lean
ing against the: neighboring fence,
looking at the train--natives
who never wore suit of store clothes
or ate good square meal in their lives;
men with guant and yellow faces and
their shoulders, their chins painted with
tobacco juice -libelous 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 a pretty good &C.
count of this Arkansas swamp, so |
hunted up copy, to see whether I
couldn't borrow little descriptions. 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 a 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), his
skin as yellow as lemon, his eyes as full
of expression as two glass marbles; if he
kept up his jollity through three months
in Eastern Arkansas, then was he in
deed the brave old Mark we all believe
him. But I don't see chance Of any
New Yorker getting adequate descrip-'
ton of this terrible swamp unless he
goes up to BELLEVUE hospital, sits down
beside some fellow in the widest stages
of delirium tremens, and gets him to de-
scribe it. The snakes, lizards, frogs,and
all the rest Of the jim-jam menagerie
WOulQ come III very pat. II nau 20.
compare it with something, it should be
with one Of the weird scenes of the Black
Crook, for the long shaggy moss hang
ing from tree-trunks and branches,gi
the place a 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 60 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 void could make one laugh, in
going through such an inundated ceme-
iery as this, it would be to think of that
tremendous lie in our great and glorious
Declaration that "all 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 fxede
When I 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.