Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-10

1uS country, ana dS GnSrS IS no SOIL gen erally but vast peaty, springy mattress of dead vegetation, covering 100, ,00O acres, it is thought that the lake occu- pies vast basin six miles by three, burned out as the result of a lightning stroke.
 It is altogether ono of the strangest phenomena in tho known world To my surprise, it is a very healthful place, aside from the poisonous serpents and vegetation, and the water in the canal. though the color of umbrella juice or the broth of lanyard, is delicious if you can forget the snakes.
 It is fresh spring water colored by the roots of juniper and cypress, and those who dwell in the Dismal swamp live on and on and on.
 One man, colored, was shown to me as a very old inhabitant of the swamp, a cypress shingle maker who assisted Adam in naming the wild beasts of Vir- ginia and made George Washington his first squirt gun. I asked him if there was any truth in the cherry tree story, and he says there was not He says that it was bee tree which George cut down with his little hatchet, and when he told his father about it and showed him how he had hived the swarm and secured washtub full of honey the old man ex- claimed: "COme to my arms, my truth full son. If you are good boy next week, will take you out and show you the Trilby Phosphate works on Sunday"
 Some one ought to tell George Du Maurier and MT. Paul Potter that Vir- ginia now has Trilby phosphate for fertilizing the soil. We are also talking some of changing the name of Mount Pisgah, ill North Carolina, whose head pierces the clouds, and whose massive feet spread over two counties to Mount Trilby.
 MT. Arnold, the author of the small book entitled "Uncle Aleck and His Mule," says, II can take retrospective view of the past.
 In this respect he is to be congratulat- ed, 1 think. Yet what better way is there to look at the past than that? You might almost say that one has no choice ill the matter.
 Dynasties have arisen, dynastied and died. Rome has had her day, boomed, t1ickered and passed away. Greece has covered the face of the known world with her power, and yet today little ammonia would remove her from the map.
 Yet tho Dismal swamp has changed but little. Its giant gums, like those of the hippOpOtamus, wave to and fro. The high and white topped waves of Lake DrunlmOnd ill stormy weather lash the loaden sky and the farreaching scream of the cat:lmuunt pierces the dense cane- brakc where lies the vcnomous serpent.
 Onward, ever onward, the insane lov. or in the misty night traces new ways through the
 Tangled juniper beds of reeds
 And many a fen whore the serpent feuds
 And man never trOd before.
 But the f1refiy lamp of his loved one ever and ever recedes in the solemn night, and silently her birch canoe melts into the gray of dawn as the weary and fainting lover, now over 200 years of age, sits down ill the bright red stump water of this huge home of despair and desolatiOn
 In 1891, according to old Uncle Tony, a mighty nice looking man came to Norfolk and got Tony to carry him out to the lake. He kept his eyes open all the way, gave Uncle Tony pound and wrote ill his notebook all of the time. Years and years after, when people told Uncle Tony that his passenger was Tom Moore, the Irish poet, who wrote the sad and beautiful poem of the insane lover wt2o followed the phantom canoe and frefy lamp of his sweetheart, the old man was quite thunderstruck. will now tell true story about snakes. Que day gentleman living to- day ill Suffolk saw in his path through the swamp large ball of snakes about the size of q cock of hay. A great many other snakes were constantly joining the wriggling mass. He decided to discharge his winchester, the magazine of which was full at the time, into the massive serpentine pill and run. He did so, and on the following day he returned to the spot, where he found 1, ,50O dead snakes and as many more wounded. He measur- ed some of them and found one that measured 4S feet, with a waist and bust measuring 57 inches. This convention of snakes, it seems, had been called together as an indignation meeting to pass reso- lutions against the Keeley cure.
 have made some trifling changes in this story because thought that it had been already tempered with, and did not care to have it. go forth over my name with any elements of improbabil- ity about it.
 MT. Arnold, whose book I have re- i ferred to as unique in many respects, says that "one very interesting place near the swamp is a farm which once belonged to George Washington. It is at the extreme south and now owned by Mrs Iah" Trotmap. and she has in her