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374 moisture, like a bowl. Indeed, the Dismal Swamp is a great bowl, forty miles long, and ten to twenty miles wide, and, strange to say, with its highest water in the centre. The sides of the bowl are miles of fallen and undecaying trees, fixed in a mortar of melted leaves and mould. Deep in the soft bosom of the swamp are countless millions of feet of precious timber that has lain there, the immense trunks crossing each other like tumbled matches, "since the beginning of the world," as a juniper cutter said.

At the village of Deep Creek, the lockman, evidently the leading person of the place, was a handsome and intelligent man, referred to by every one as "Mr. Geary." A crowd of mingled white and black awaited our arrival on the canal bridge; and when we landed, I was somewhat surprised to see "Mr. Geary" and Mr. Moseley shake hands most warmly, and proceed arm in arm like old friends. A lank white man oflfered me an explanation. "Mr. Geary," he said, "is a high Mason. Them two are above me and you. I'm an Odd Fellow, I am; but them fellows are higher'n me or you."

Mr. Geary was a kindly man, "high Mason" or not. We found later on that he was widely known as a famous hunter, who probably knew the