Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/422

Rh Dismal Swamp as well as any man living. He had shot over it all his life. He told us that the fishing at the lake was "wonderful."

Moseley's canoe still leaking, we hired a team from "Mr." Johnson of Deep Creek, to carry the baggage to Capt. Wallace's house, and we started to paddle up the canal.

It was a lovely evening, and the surroundings were so novel and so unexpectedly attractive, that we can never forget the impression. Far before us as the eye could reach, ran the canal, narrowing in perspective, till it closed to a fine point. On the right, rose from the water, a dense forest of cypress and juniper, flowering poplar, black gum, yellow pine, maple, and swamp oak, with a marvellous underwood of laurel in ravishing flower, the very air heavy with the rich perfume, which resembles that of a tuberose, honeysuckle heaped in delicious blossom, yellow jessamine, bay, myrtle, purple trumpet flowers of the poison oak-vine, with the ever-present roses, and white-flowering blackberry hanging into the water.

As the evening darkened, with a clear sky overhead, and a red glow from the west, reaching over the trees, the effect was almost oppressively beautiful. No other tree darkens in evening silhouette so impressively as the two queen trees of