The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-30
THROUGH DISMAL SWAMP.
1 VOYAGE IN 4 JUNIPER WOOD
 SKIFF.
No Malaria, But Great Place for
 Bears,

A wilderness the Dismal swamp re- mains. Even to-day its deeper recesses are hardly known save to such unframed denizens as deer and bear and pecu- liar race of cattle that have run wild and live upon the reeds. Not few peo- pie in quest of game, or curious to know what place so weirdly named may be like, penetrate the swamp from suffolk by way of the Jericho canal, or on the eastern side, through the Dismal swamp canal. But)away from these recognized arteries of commerce stretch thousands upon thousands of acres of dense, tan gled forest, usually covered with water to depth of one or two feet, untra- versed by waterways and untraversa- ble afoot. In such fastnesses the black bear is at home, and he does not let himself be seen if he can help it. But in hard winters he is sometimes driven from his haunts and has been seen by startled wayfarers even in the outskirts of Portsmouth.
 It was on beautiful May day that first saw the swamp. Our route that day was the Jericho canal, which one reaches, riding or driving, about two miles from the sleepy old town of Suf- folk. Our craft was skiff built of ju- niper wood, and propelled by pole and paddle. At first the way lay through q comparatively open tract. which has been burnt over from time to time, and which, despite the burgeoning green of such vegetation as had survived the Ior ftoro bJ dlcn1Qta "a and forlorn. The trees here are small wateroaks and COW oaks, sweet bay, hol- ly. cotton gums, short-leaf pine and some juniper (white cedar). Big cane, which inhabitants know as reeds, grows everywhere, bending it's graceful sprays over the water, or with stems standing stiffly erect in great clumps. To this bamboo, more than to any other plant, the vegetation of the Dismal and other southern swamps owes It's peculiarity of aspect. The cane was in bloom when we came into the swamp, and made one think of the marvels travellers tell con- corning the rare Towering of bamboo in India. The young stalks, which are used for making pipe-stems, are cut and tied in sheaves, by negroes who can thus earn dollar day. Many flower ing shrubs were there, mostly heath- worts, but heathworts with large shiny leaves, hardly to be recognized by their humble cousins of the northern moors and peat bogs. Most delightful of all to eye and nose was pale pink azalea, much sought by country people for the curious green swelling produced on It's leaves by certain fungus, These they eat, knowing them as honeysuckle ap- pies.
 As we pursued our lazy way along the canal, the trees became always higher, and the ringing canes more dense. The woodland voices that had been lifted high in the early morning sank to whisper. The chorused chanting of the frogs spring song died away. Now and then the sweet note of a warbler reached the ear. Once a great gray crane rose into the air with discordant cry. Ever and anon we would beat up blue her. on, to see him disappear in fright down the long arcade before Us. Then we glided into what Is known as the Black Gum swamp, where the straight col umns of the tree-trunl1s lowered hun dred feet or more above us, and the light was soft as in a cathedral. Two miles os so we went between the solemn yine-hung black gums and then emerged upon the margin of Lake Drummond, having travelled our ten miles in something less than four hours Naturally, every one who has read Moore's poem, 'The Lake of the Dismal Swamp recalls it to mind when he sights Lake Drummond for the first time. And even when seen in the full tide of monday, there Is something of weirdness in the look of this forest-bor- dered sheet of water Involuntarily one's eyes go searching tha that myste- rious maid who has:
 Gone to the lake of the Dismal swamp, Where all night long by fire-fly lamp,
 She paddles her white canoe.
 That the Irish poet wrote of the Dis mal swamp with all the authority of &C., tual experience, witness the lines: His path was rugged and sore,
 Through tangled juniper beds of
 reeds,
 Through many a fen where the ser
 pent feeds,
 Man's foot never trod before
 But to descend from the poets flight of imagination to the details of prosaic uSSCTlptIOu l1dhG IS q SIIdti body of water only three miles long and two and one-half wide. The banks are everywhere flat, so that the lake inn presses one as being much larger than it is. It would be a thoroughly mono- tonoue landscape, this were it not for the picturesque belt of old cypress stumps that margin the lake, almost at very high water, but usually in plain view Gnarled and gray are these relics of ancient forests worn by years of weather and storm dashed water into thousand strange, forms One likes to picture to one's self the noble trees that must have once stood in serried array about Lake Dfummond. A few are still liv- ing, small of girth above, but near the water thickening into huge buttressed base. One of the most notable is known in the countryside as Samsons Maui. I To the branches of these old expresses cling small wisps of Spanish moss and the gray boards of lichens that resem- ble it.
 Thus we found the swamp in May. In July, very different was its seeming. | Then it was less to appreciate the sig nificance of it's time-honored name Dis mal, which can hardly be very inappro- 1 priate, since in eastern North Carolina | it has come to be the generic appela- tion for all timbered swamps. Every |