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
canebrakes, 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 canebrakes, ten miles in breadth, and so
difficult to travel over, that the length of the two swamps, short as it
is, cannot be passed by a fresh and strong horse in less than fourteen
hours. At just half-way of this painful journey the river is to be
passed, and this cannot be done without a ferry, for the moment you
leave the canes, the shallow water begins, and the bottom is so soft,
that any object touching it must sink to a depth of several fathoms.
Till 1834, no white man lived in that district, and the Indians resorted
to it only during the shooting season, always on foot and invariably
provided with half-a-dozen of canoes on each side of the stream for
their own use or for the benefit of travellers. The Texans are not so
provident nor so hospitable.

As the white population increased in that part of the country, a man of
the name of Gibson erected a hut on the southern bank of the stream,
construct