"'SPEC' I 'scober de light ob day, gen'l'm." These words were uttered in a sepulchral tone by an ebony apparition in scant garments, which suddenly appeared through a hole in the attic floor. The strange and startling effect of such a visitation in the early hours before dawn, carrying its own illuminating accessory in the shape of a tallow dip, which threw flickering, ghostly shadows on the wall, aroused us from troubled slumber, and startled us into a sitting posture, with a decided inclination to yawn and rub our eyes.

The little word "us," in this instance, stands for the writer and his three companions; and as to our quarters, where we had spent a portion of the night, they were by no means fashionable -luxurious coverlets, downy pillows, and all that; on the contrary, our bed-chamber was a garret of limited proportions, in which you could not stand upright without bumping your head against

rafters, and our bed consisted of two boards and divers old blankets.

Seeing that we continued to yawn, and still appeared very sleepy, the ebony-colored ghost, with the spluttering candle, which showed us the whites of his rolling eyes in weird relief against their dark background, repeated his remark:

"'Spec' I 'scober de light ob day, gen'l'm." "Uncle Joe" was the landlord of the Civil Rights Hotel, located about midway between Norfolk and South Mills, North Carolina, upon the road leading, in company with a canal, through the great Dismal Swamp. The establishment was not of regal dimensions, and did not possess all the facilities which would be required to make it a favorite resort, but looked more like a barn struck by lightning than anything else; while its proprietor, the sable dispenser of bed and board referred to, under the name of "Uncle Joe," was

THE CIVIL RIGHTS HOTEL.

his case. Of course, the corn pones and sweet potatoes set before us a little later lacked some of the adjuncts considered indispensable in first-class hotels, but we were in the heart of the Dismal Swamp, and could scarcely expect luxury.

"I doesn't need no clock, boss," said Uncle Joe; "I kin tell when I sees de light."

But for once his anxiety that we should not sleep too late was stronger than his visual sense. Perhaps it was a morning star or a phosphorescent swamp light; it certainly was not daylight, for we were well through with our breakfast before the fringe of woodland back of the house began to appear in silhouette against the eastern sky.

To explain how it came about that we were the guests of this colored landlord it will be necessary to look back a day or two.

At lunch with the ward-room officers of the U.S.S. Plymouth, moored at the Gosport Navy Yard, the writer, who shall be hereafter known as the Historian, suggested a visit to Lake Drummond, that mysterious body of water reposing in solitary state in the middle of the Dismal Swamp. The proposition was favorably received, and bore fruits in the fitting out of the ship's yawl-boat and the departure of the expedition upon the following day with sails, camping equipage, and wellstocked hampers, with a crew of sailors and marines.

The party of explorers comprised the Lieutenant, the Middy, the Baron, and the Historian. The command devolved upon the first of the quartette, while the remaining three developed

By dint of sailing, rowing, and towing along the canal, we had managed to reach the Civil Rights Hotel late at night. The ancient Boniface was peacefully engaged in smoking his pipe, and baking his bald pate before the chimney-place; and his "ole woman" dreamed in drowsy numbers of the hoe-downs and jigs of "de good ole days," when they were startled by our formidable naval expedition, seeking shelter from the somewhat frosty November air.

The Dismal Swamp is probably less understood than any other stretch of country upon the Atlantic seaboard. It is thought to be an untenable morass where none but refugee negroes of "Dred" type formerly existed, safe from the fangs of bloodhounds, and where venomous reptiles bask in the sun undisturbed, save by the fierce birds of

growth and decay. This certainly is true as to a part of the section; but a very large proportion has been reclaimed, and while not productive to the extent found in the western soils, it still affords subsistence to a large but scattered population, both white and black. Saw-mills are numerous, and great quantities of railroad ties are shipped annually, as well as staves and shingles. The overhanging verdure scarcely gives back the kaleidoscopic tones, or richer madders, found in our northern woodlands in October. But this is fully compensated for by the wilder, denser nature of the trees and their parasites. All of the delicate shades of gray, brown, deep-green, umber, and Indian-yellow light up, when the morning or evening sun is aslant the scene, in all the mellow textures of which rainbows are made.

Legions of dead and blasted trunks rise everywhere. The mistletoe clings to their limbs; the wild grape enwraps them, and the eagle builds his nest in their topmost branches. They look, at a little distance, like fleets of oyster pungies in harbor after a storm.

The water, too, is bright with the stain of the juniper. Where it pours through the locks it has the color of lager beer. Some saponaceous quality throws it into great masses of froth, which bubble up to the tops of the lock-walls, creamy or chocolatelike. At one of the locks we were edified by the sight of an avalanche of blanc-mange enveloping our craft and its contents, until nothing was to be seen except the masts and part of a sailor, who stuck to the deck "whence all but him had fled."

Bordering the canal, which, by the way, the Government proposes some day to use as a link in a national coastwise ship-channel, is a good road, its most frequent traveler being the driver of the mail wagon. This faithful African, who takes the rickety mail wagon three times a week to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and back to Norfolk, is an old man-yea, very old. He has a fringe of woolly whiskers from ear to ear under his chin, wears an indescribable something in the way of a hat, and has a pair of square-rimmed spectacles perched upon his nose. These last are of no earthly use to him, because he always looks over and never through them.

Through storm and sunshine for many years he has driven his almost equally ancient team to and fro. He is a great personage in the eyes of the negroes generally, for he visits the almost

unknown cities upon the northern edge of the swamp. He is respected in accordance with his fame as a traveler, and his position as custodian of the United States mail. His head is stored with a great fund of tradition and fact as to the history of the swamp lands, and a judicious series of questions propounded from time to time as you would throw sticks of wood upon a waning fire serves to keep him busy in the intervals of urging his team and dropping mail-bags at infrequent post-offices, with the delivery of long-drawn ram

bling responses spoken over one shoulder and much as though he were talking to himself.

"Uncle, were you brought up in this region?" "No, sah. I was raised 'way down that-a-way, in Pasquotank. Reckon it's mor'n thirty miles. from heah."

"Married man, of course ?"

"Yes, sah. I'se had a power o' chil'n. You see, I was married a secon' time, an' de lady on dat 'casion bein' a widder, she had seberal ob her

the time, and, with that instinctive feeling which in the midst of solitudes makes all mankind akin, officers and men partook alike, the spell being broken finally by the voice of the commander calling on the sailors to row.

Fifty minutes of steady pulling by the oarsmen brought us back under the shadow of the trees, where we disturbed a small community of wild geese, which flew close along the surface of the water, leaving a ruffled track with their startled wings. According to our compass, we were one-quarter of the lake's circumference from our point of entry, and it was determined to continue our explorations to a point midway from the feeder and then return directly across.

A short distance further along we found a corduroy road of uncertain stability, which led back into the swamp from a floating platform of poplar logs chained to the stumps. This was built by the negro lumbermen for the purpose of hauling logs to the boats, which sometimes get up into the lake. At this point in our journey that portion of our party known as the Baron became excited. His Teutonic visage lighted up with a glow of expectancy. He was a little man, with a fierce moustache and goatee, which, under the influVOL. XVII.-22

ence of undue emotion, bristled all over, as if each hair desired to start in business for itself.

The Baron's highest ambition in life was to kill a bear, and here he would find his bear. His soul stirred within him at the thought. Alas! could we but see a fraction as far in prospect as in retrospect, how much of disaster might be avoided. All through, to the end of life, we travel, as it were, in a fog, and as we paddle down stream seldom know when we have drifted out of the

channel until we strike a snag, or find ourselves high and dry upon a shoal.

The Baron grasped his Remington, and in a little while he was almost lost to view, as he jumped nimbly from log to log. The last we saw of him was the skirts of his coat, flopping up and down in the dim distance. Perhaps twenty minutes had passed when, clear and sharp, rang out the crack of his rifle, followed by a great splash and sounds of combat.

The Baron had found his bear. Or stay, perchance the bear had found his Baron.

The latter impression was greatly strengthened by a continuation of the noises in the swamp, in which our Nimrod's voice mingled constantly: "Ach, himmel! Vy dond you kom? Donner und blitzen,