Swamp

“ Yes, we know that swamp, and other swamps only less well. We know the rock ledges, the big dry woods of oak and chestnut and maple and beech. We know the ravines where the great hemlocks keep the air always dim and still, and one goes silent-footed over the needle floor. We grow familiar, too, with all the little things about the country. We discover new haunts of the fringed gentian, the wonderful, the capricious, with its unbelievable blue that one sees nowhere else save under the black lashes of some Irish eyes. ”

“ Strike in by the gnarled way through the swamp Where late the laurel shone, An intimate close where you meet yourself And come unto your own, By bouldered brook to the hidden spring Where breath of ferns blows sweet And swift birds break the silence as Their shadows cross your feet. Stout-hearted thrust through gold-green copse To garner the woodland glee ”

“ Curious sounds reach you as you thread the mazes of the swamp. The water boils up from the oozy bottom, and the bubbles break at the surface with a faint lisping sound: the reeds softly rattle against one another like the rustle of heavy silks, and you can hear the lily-pads and deeply-anchored stems of the water-weeds rubbing against one another. ”

“ Incidentally I was admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood red it was, in streaks—a beautiful sight. And up beyond, the land rose grey and hazy to the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth. And fifty yards behind the back of me was these blessed heathen—quite regardless of the tranquil air of things—plotting to cut off with the boat and leave me all alone with three days’ provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing to drink whatsoever, beyond a little keg of water. ”

“ Pools of water sparkled here and there; babbling brooks winding capriciously in and out in wayward circles; at times, the sudden gleam of a waterfall, threading downwards in white streaks from a giant rock; and again, the miasma of a swamp, black and evil-looking, in whose waters rolled the trunks of fallen trees. Everywhere flowers bursting into bloom; everywhere new leaves swelling into being; everywhere the exuberant life of a tropic climate. ”

“ To many, a swamp or marsh brings only the very practical thought of whether it can be readily drained. Let us rejoice, however, that many marshes cannot be thus easily wiped out of existence, and hence they remain as isolated bits of primeval wilderness, hedged about by farms and furrows. The water is the life-blood of the marsh,—drain it, and reed and rush, bird and batrachian, perish or disappear. The marsh, to him who enters it in a receptive mood, holds, besides mosquitoes and stagnation,—melody, the mystery of unknown waters, and the sweetness of Nature undisturbed by man. ”

“ I tried the swamp to-day, Mr. Charteris. It stretches for miles and miles to the westward. It quakes as you pick your way from tussock to tussock, and it is impossible to stand in one spot for more than a few seconds. ”

“ The silence is only broken by the loud breathing of the little steamer;—odors of vegetable death—smells of drowned grasses and decomposing trunks and of eternal mould-formation—make the air weighty to breathe; and the green obscurities on either hand deepen behind the crests of the water-oaks and the bright masses of willow frondescense. The parasitic life of the swamp, pendant and enormous, gives the scene a drenched, half-drowned look, as of a land long-immersed, and pushed up again from profundities of stagnant water,—and still dripping with moisture and monstrous algae. ”

“ The ground is a bit swampy in places, boggy.
Low-lying land runs to bog and swamp. And the air gets thick with heavy vapours. And strange will-of-the-wisp lights form out of the foul damp gasses, and they flit about in the gloom this way and that. And people are led astray by them deeper into swamp and bog. It's surprising to find how many, that grow up in well-lit neighbourhoods, wander off after the swamp lights, and even follow them so contentedly. ”

“ It is any thing but a pleasant sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the White and Red Rivers, and at the first glance appears like a huge mirror of vivid green, apparently affording solid footing, and scattered over with trees, from which rank creepers and a greasy slime hang in long festoons. ”

“ Shame to the turbid, murky swamp, which never receives and never reflects this image! Millions of plants drink from the four elements of nature; a magazine of supplies is open for all: but they mix their sap in a thousand different ways, and return it in a thousand new forms. ”

“ Looking into the swamp, I saw that the root of this tree was connected with other fallen timber, extending beyond the reach of my vision which was obstructed by the bramble of the swamp, and the numerous ever-greens, growing here. I now advanced along the trunk of the tree, until I reached its topmost branches, and here discovered evident signs of a small trail, leading into the thicket of ivy. ”

“ When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the virgin mould—and the same soil is good for men and for trees. ”

“ Every farmer with his wife and children, for twenty miles round in every direction, with waggons, carriages, and horses, flocked to see the operation; and a swamp always noted for being the solitary and dismal abode of snakes and frogs, became the active scene of curiosity and bustle; the greater part astonished at the whim of an old man in travelling two hundred miles from his home, to dig up as a treasure, at incredible risk, labour, and expence, a pile of bones, which, although all were astonished to see, many imagined fit for nothing better than to rot and serve for manure. ”

“ M. To Hubbard's Bridge and Holden Swamp, and up river on ice to Fair Haven pond crossing, just below pond; back on east side of river. Skating is fairly begun. I can walk through the spruce swamp now dry-shod amid the water andromeda and Kalmia glauca. How handsome every one of these leaves that are blown about over the snow crust, or lie neglected beneath, soon to turn to mould! Not merely a matted mass of fibres like a sheet of paper, but a perfect organism and system in itself, so that no mortal has ever yet discerned or explored its beauty. ”

“ Now and again, indeed, sportsmen of the bolder sort presume to penetrate far into this pathless labyrinth of bush and brake; but they are forced to wind their way among the trees in canoes which may at any moment be upset by the twisted tangle of roots stretching far and wide beneath the water, and it is just in these very places that the swamp is many fathoms deep ”

“ I have come to the conclusion that this swamp is unique in many respects. By some freak of nature, things here are entirely different from what they are elsewhere. Even the vegetation is new and strange to me; and I am convinced that it is also the home of many forms of animal life unknown elsewhere. The exasperating part of the whole thing is that most of the creatures inhabiting it seem to be of nocturnal habit, hiding themselves during the day, and only emerging into the open at night. Just listen now to the hubbub of sound all about us. Why, the place must be fairly teeming with life! ”

“ It was an ordinary frame house standing on brick legs, and situated on a barren knoll, which, because of the dead level of marsh and swamp and deserted fields from which it rose, seemed to achieve the loneliness of a real height. The south and west sides of the house looked out on marsh and swamp; the north and east sides on a wide stretch of old fields grown up in broom-grass. Beyond the marsh rolled a river, now quite beyond its banks with a freshet; beyond the swamp, which was a cypress swamp, rose a railway embankment leading to a bridge that crossed the river. ”

“ There is a roaring, impetuous brook emptying into Second Fork, called “Rock Run.” It heads in a level swamp, near the summit of the mountain. The swamp contains about forty acres, and is simply a level bed of loose stones, completely overgrown with bright green moss.
“Rock Run” heads in a strong, ice-cold spring, but is soon sunken and lost among the loose stones of the swamp. Just where the immense hemlocks, that make the swamp a sunless gloom, get their foothold, is one of the things I shall never find out. But, all the same, they are there. ”

“ Dismal by nature, indeed, as well as by name, is that vast swamp, of which we now skirted the northern edge, looking into its endless pools of black water, where the melancholy cypress and juniper-trees alone overshadowed the thick-looking surface, their roots all globular, like huge bulbous plants, and their dark branches woven together with a hideous matting of giant creepers, which clung round their stems, and hung about the dreary forest like a drapery of withered snakes. ”

“ The idea of a swamp had always presented itself to our mind’s eye as a vast expanse of shiny, slushy soil, half mud, half water, with here and there a rank undergrowth of bushes and stiff grass, and briers, through which it must be a melancholy task to travel,—but it is not so. In travelling through these swampy regions the prospect is neither a dull nor an uninteresting one; whole forests of grand old trees rise up from the watery waste, the rich varied foliage growing so{47} luxuriantly, and in such impenetrable masses that scarce a ray of sunshine comes glinting through. ”

“ Here, the rank matter of the swamp, its slime and rubbish, resolving themselves by a natural but rapid decomposition into one mass, yield the thick luxuriance of soil from which springs up the overgrown tree, which throws out a thousand branches, and seems to have existed as many years—in whose bulk we behold an emblem of majesty, and, in whose term of life, standing in utter defiance of the sweeping hurricane, we have an image of strength which compels our admiration, and sometimes the more elevated acknowledgment of our awe. ”

“ Round a hollow piece of table-land, tending to a swamp, we saw, standing at equal distances from each other, three sheds, constructed of long fir poles driven into the earth and tapering, [Pg 32] like a cone, into the air, covered scantily with the branches of the pine or fir, and having an only inlet by which a man, crouching, might reach the interior. In the centre of this swamp the carcass of a horse lay, mangled and scattered in every direction. ”

“ How many times have I longed for him to come to my beloved country, that he might describe, as no one else ever can, the stream, the swamp, the river, the mountain, for the sake of future ages. A century hence they will not be here as I see them, Nature will have been robbed of many brilliant charms, the rivers will be tormented and turned astray from their primitive courses, the hills will be levelled with the swamps, and perhaps the swamps will have become a mound surmounted by a fortress of a thousand guns. ”

“ I felt as though forbidden to enter the mysteries of the swamp, as though warned that 3 danger lay within those aisles of twilight. The veery ceased its song. No bird voice broke the stillness of the gloom, and a hush of expectation held every leaf motionless. The branches closed behind me and I stole on between lofty trees with mossy trunks, over fallen logs, and through the dripping jungle of ferns. Upland woods are cleaner, stronger, more symmetrical than swamp growth, but they have not the effect of tropical luxuriance which the swamp forest possesses. ”

“ FTER a cold, damp, rainy week, we have suddenly had dropped upon us a balmy, warm, summer day,—thermometer at eighty; and every thing out of doors growing so fast, that you may see and hear it grow.
The swampy belt of land in front of the house is now bursting forth in clouds of blue iris of every shade, from the palest and faintest 138 to the most vivid lapis-lazuli tint. The wild-rose-bushes there are covered with buds; and the cypress-trees are lovely with their vivid little feathers of verdure. This swamp is one of those crooks in our lot which occasions a never-ceasing conflict of spirit. ”

“ At length a shout proclaimed success, and presently a man of gigantic mould broke out of the tangled labyrinth of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have been formed partly by the ravages of the wind, and partly by those of fire. ”

“ To his surprise it extended for a long distance, and to his great gratification the moisture of the ground increased, until at length the bog became more and more marshy, and pools of standing water became visible. He skirted the edge of the swamp, still walking on, and at length reached a place where a small brook flowed on out of this swamp into the woods. ”

“ Sometimes you will see many small ones in a swamp turned quite crimson when all other trees around are still perfectly green, and the former appear so much the brighter for it. They take you by surprise, as you are going by on one side, across the fields thus early in the season, as if it were some gay encampment of the red men, or other foresters, of whose arrival you had not heard. ”

“ The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high; which made it dark at noon-day, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses; where the green surface often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull-frog, and the water-snake, and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping in the mire. ”

“ The night herons come every spring to their ancient rookery in a swamp hard by. As the shadows fall the birds may be heard calling, "squawk, squawk," while they make their way down the creek to their fishing grounds in the lake. ”