TO GROW UP AGAIN IN A JUNGLE.
But little work is now done in the Dismal Swamp, and it will again
soon become a howling wilderness, a hiding place for the bears,
wild-cats, snakes and everything hideous. The bamboo and rattan will
rule supreme, and, like the banyan tree, will form an impenetrable
jungle. But a few years will be required for its accomplishment, and
without an axe you could not move a foot.
G. P. R. James, the British Consul, who was stationed at Norfolk when
he wrote his novel entitled "The Old Dominion," and which was a
history of "Nat Turner's War," (as it is called) in Southampton
county, states that a young mother, with her infant, fled to the
Dismal Swamp for safety. Mr. James must have drawn heavily on his
imagination for a figure, to make the situation more horrible. I do
not think any mother with an infant would flee to such a wild and
desolate place as the Dismal Swamp, but, on the contrary, would keep
far away.
I could relate many interesting stories that I have heard about the
Swamp, but as I am writing from my own observation, will discard all
such from my task. It is true that some very mysterious things have
been seen at various times. I will, digressing a little from my story,
relate one circumstance that was told me by a gentlemen who lived in
Suffolk and was stopping at Lake Drummond Hotel, situated near the
lake shore, and which was visited at that time by many persons from
New York and other places. This gentleman remarked to me that he was
standing near the Lake one morning, and happening to look across the
Lake, to his great astonishment, saw come out of the woods, at a point
so thick with reeds, bamboo and rattan, that you could not get three
feet from the shore, a beautiful, finely-dressed lady; she walked out
on a log about twenty feet into the Lake, with a fishing pole in her
hand. I saw her bait her hook and throw it out into the Lake. He said
he could also tell the color of the ribbon on her bonnet. He watched
the same place every day for several days, and at the same hour each
day the lady appeared as before. I told my friend that he must have
been laboring under an optical delusion at the time, as the Lake was
five miles wide at that place, and that it was impossible for one to
distinguish objects at so great a distance with the naked eye. He
replied that every part of the story was true.
On another occasion, a gentleman, now living in Suffolk, told me that
he was out hunting in the Swamp, and chancing to look to the front saw
snakes coming from every direction, and quite near him he saw a lump
of them that looked to be as large as a barrel. He supposed that there
must have been as many as five hundred, all so interwoven that they
looked like a ball of snakes. He said he was too close on them to
shoot, so stepping back, he fired both barrels of his gun at the
bunch. An untangling at once commenced, and he said, "consarned if he
ever saw so many snakes before." Upon going to the place where he had
shot, he found 150 snakes dead, and as many more wounded. He carried
some of the largest of the dead out, procured a ten-foot rod, and on
measuring found one that measured twenty-three feet. I have related
this snake story several times, but was always very particular to know
that the gentleman who told me was at some other place.