Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/407

360 lower than the surface of the canal. On the east side ran the road, and beyond this, long stretches of level country, formerly part of the Dismal Swamp, but now more or less cleared, with here and there a farm of astonishing superiority, and at long intervals a straggling village, usually connected with a saw-mill for juniper and cypress. Originally the canal ran right through the swamp, which it now borders on the eastern side.

The land east of the canal has been cleared, because it has been drained into the sea. The fall is to the east. But all the land west of the canal is still unrelieved and "dismal" swamp.

How is this? Does not the land on the west side drain into the canal, as the land eastward has drained into the sea? No! the canal has completely stopped drainage; it is higher than all the western swamp.

Then came the startling suggestion, striking us both at the same time. This canal is a cruel ligature on the vitals of the swamp, shutting it in on itself and suffocating it. The canal is higher than the swamp, and instead of draining it, drowns it. The canal is a straggler, and here before our eyes was a deliberate process of land murder!

But I have outstripped the canoes. Let me begin at the beginning, and tell this story of a