y Gran' Point', and sim like dey mos' all name Roussel.
_Sim_ dat way to _me_. An' ev'y las' one got a lil fahm so lil you
can't plow her; got dig her up wid a spade. Yes, seh, same like you
diggin' grave; yes, seh."

[2] Raccoon.

[3] During the war.

The gentle stranger interrupted, still without lifting his eyes from
the path. "'Tis better narrowness of land than of virtue." The negro
responded eagerly:

"Oh, dey good sawt o' peop', yes. Dey deals fair an' dey deals square.
Dey keeps de peace. Dass 'caze dey mos'ly don't let whisky git on deir
blin' side, you know. Dey _does_ love to dance, and dey marries
mawnstus young; but dey not like some niggehs: dey stays married. An'
modess? Dey dess so modess dey shy! Yes, seh, dey de shyes',
easy-goin'es', modesses', most p'esumin' peop' in de whole worl'! I
don't see fo' why folks talk 'gin dem Cajun'; on'y dey a lil bit
slow."

The traveller on the levee's top suddenly stood still, a soft glow on
his cheek, a distension in his blue eyes. "My friend, what was it, the
first American industry? Was it not the Newfoundland fisheries? Who
inaugu'ate them, if not the fishermen of Normandy and Bretagne? And
since how long? Nearly fo' hundred years!"

"Dass so, boss," exclaimed the negro with the promptitude of an
eye-witness; but the stranger continued:--

"The ancestors of the Acadian'--they are the fathers of the codfish!"
He resumed his walk.

"Dass so, seh; dass true. Yes, seh, you' talkin' mighty true; dey a
pow'ful ancestrified peop', dem Cajun'; dass w'at make dey so shy, you
know. An' dey mighty good han' in de sugah-house. Dey des watchin',
now, w'en dat sugah-cane git ready fo' biggin to grind; so soon dey
see dat, dey des come a-lopin' in here to Mistoo Wallis' sugah-house
here at Belle Alliance, an' likewise to Marse Louis Le Bourgeois yond'
at Belmont. You see! de fust t'ing dey gwine ass you when you come at
Gran' Point'--'Is Mistoo Wallis biggin to grind?' Well, seh, like I
tell you, yeh de sugah-house, an' dah de road. Dat road fetch you at
Gran' Point'."

CHAPTER II.

IN A STRANGE LAND.

An hour later the stranger, quite alone, had left behind him the broad
smooth road, between rustling walls of sugar-cane, that had brought
him through Belle Alliance plantation. The way before him was little
more than a bridle-path along the earth thrown up beside a
draining-ditch in a dense swamp. The eye could run but a little way
ere it was con