ne of the negroes to bring a couple of
powerful oxen, yoked to a gill, employed to drag out the stumps of old
trees. For many minutes the oxen were lashed and goaded in vain; every
yarn of the hawser was strained to the utmost, till, at last, the two
brutes, uniting all their strength in one vigorous and final pull, it
was dragged from the water, but the monster had escaped. The hook had
straightened and to its barb were attached pieces of thick bones and
cartilages, which must have belonged to the palate of the monster.

The unfortunate traveller has but little chance of escaping with life,
if, from want of experience, he is foundered in the swampy cane-brakes.
When the horse sinks and the rider leaves the saddle, the only thing he
can do is to return back upon his track; but let him beware of these
solitary small patches of briars, generally three or four yards in
circumference, which are spread here and there on the edges of the
cane-brakes, for there he will meet with deadly reptiles and snakes
unknown in the prairies; such as the grey-ringed water mocassin, the
brown viper, the black congo with red head and the copper head, all of
whom congregate and it may be said make their nests in these little dry
oases, and their bite is followed by instantaneous death.

These are the dangers attending travellers in the swamps, but there are
many others to be undergone in crossing lagoons, rivers, or small lakes.
All the streams, tributaries of the Sabine and of the Red River below
the great bend (which is twenty miles north of the Lost Prairie), have
swampy banks and muddy bottoms, and are impassable when the water is too
low to permit the horses to swim. Some of these streams have ferries,
and some lagoons have floating bridges in the neighbourhood of the
plantations; but as it is a new country, where government has as yet
done nothing, these conveniences are private property, and the owner of
a ferry, not being bound by a contract, ferries only when he chooses and
at the price he wishes to command.

I will relate a circumstance which will enable the reader to understand
the nature of the country, and the difficulties of overland travelling
in Texas. The great Sulphur Fork is a tributary of the Red River, and
it is one of the most dangerous. Its approach can only be made on both
sides through belts of swampy cane-brakes, ten miles in breadth, and so
difficult to travel over, that the length of the two swamps, short as