The National tribune., 1901-07-25


Trade your horse for a set of fins and
fipEers, and paddle through the swamp
We need all this dry ground in our bust
ness. You get the big trees in fight.
Leave us something
81 tried a detour to avoid the jam, and
get through, but regretted it, after they
had ioundered through u swamp. The
swarming infantry had found and was
holding every decent passage through the
country.
Say, boys, let US through" pleaded 81,
at last. Gen. Howard has sent us out
to find our ships. and we're il a hurry
Hello, going to find our ships! Hoo
ray!' they shouted. Go ahead, and good
luck to you. Open out there, boys, and let
EN- through. Crowd back into the swamp
there. Don't mind if you do get your
little tOOtsie wootsies wet. Twont be the
Grst time. Open up, there"
As they would ride in single file through
the ranks they would be greeted with
cheers.
a cross between a tormented rear-jam
and grand review" commented 81.
They managed to get across the
Oseeche River that afternoon, however,
and into country in which there was no
troops, but the country itself was the
most foriorn and battling they had yet
struck. 1t was poorer, even, than the
sand hills tlsy had just left. Everywhere
was a stretch of lOw-lying sand between
the oOZy, fetid mire of the eternal SwampS
and their dense brakes of cane, reeds, and
brush. The swamps seemed TO have
sucked every particle OF nutrimeHt, out of
the yellow sand, and crowded it back as
exhausted and worthless. Nothing grew
on it, but scattered, stunted pines and
sparse growths of a peculiar weed, or
shrub, which looked like a green palm
leaf fan, with the greater part broken
off.
"Of all the condemned countries / ever
saw, this is the worst" said 81. Even
Il razor-backed hog would starve to death
on Il range of 80 miles of it, unless he
could live on the snakes in the swamps.
Wonder what they live on!"
I'D like to fence jeff Davis in on it,
said Shorty, land make him live on what
he could raise"
Occasionally they would come upon the
miserable shack of some ague-smitten
parish, whose ancestor had probably been
pauper or a criminal transported from
England, to work the new plantations"
but had been driven off as absolutely
worthless. The man, his house, his family
and his surroundings were more miserable
than anything they had ever seen even
back in the mountains. The shack would
be the most wretched shelter ever erected
by human beings. The man did not have
energy or skill TO cut logs, build them up
into a pen, and cover them with split
shingles. Instead, he gathered such odds
and ends of logs and branches as he did
not have to carry too far, and made such
a shelter as his laziness permitted, cover
ing the place with pine boughs and stuff
from the swamps. Around the hut would
be a little, thinly-scratched space, in
which stood some thin corn-stalks about
the size of gas pipes, and some tall cOllard
Nnll llr. Otaa Ii
animals Of any kind, except a few lank,
acknowledgement ours.
An inexpressibly limp, weak, shaggy,
weak-eyed man would lounge listlessly in
front of the shack, and gaze at them
without the slightest show OF interest,
while from the covert of the logs they
would see sterner, livelier gaze from the
sour-eyed woman. The children, nearly
naked, though it was Winter, and wilder
than the dogs, would scurry away to hid
ing-places, like SO many rabbits.
And such people not % miles from the
great city of Savannah" said 81. There
was some excuse for that sort Of thing
up in the mountains, but none that l can
see down here. What they need Ia
school houses, and good. red-hot Methodist
preachers to stir 'em up with the danger
they're in from hell-fre II they don't wake
up from idleness and SIM"
.'Aint worth it," answered Shorty.
"Cholery's the only thing that'd do them
justice. But the next breed would be
just as bad. a man to live in this water
logged country 3 got to be so mean that
even an alligator won't eat him."
What the Adjutant said about follsring
the Ogeechee right down to the seas a |
good deal easier than dons," said 81, after
they had worked for hours around and
through the interminabls network OF
swamps, creeks and lagoons. "Taint so
plain by long sight as 1t was ON that
map just where the Ogeechee lays"
"A map of this country" said the dis
gusted Shorty, ito look anything like,
would have to resemble the insides of that
man on the front page OF the almanac"
81 think the Ogeechee lays over there
much further" said 81. with wave OF his
hand. I've been watching the sun, and
[ believe we're getting too far south"
mo, believe this il the Ogeechee, the
real river, that we've been coming along"
insisted Shorty.
The dispute grew a little warm, and
hey called upon cracker" lounging In
front of his shack to settle IL.
Where's the O-gee-chss River, strang-
,rT asked 81, pronouncing the unfamiliar
name slowly and laboredly, almost spell
ng it.
"Whar's what, strangers?" inquired the
nan In turn after waiting full minute to
ct the question soak into bis sluggish un-
l.