tle pocket bottoms, the varied vegetation has a sub-tropical
luxuriance, and in this now close, warm air, there is a rank smell
suggestive of malaria.

These bottoms are annually overflowed, so that the crude little
farmsteads are on the rising ground--whitewashed cabins, many of them
of logs, serve as houses; for stock, there are the veriest shanties,
affording practically no shelter; best of all, the rude tobacco-drying
sheds, in many of which some of last year's crop can still be seen,
hanging on the strips. We are out of the world, here; and barefooted
men and boys, who with listless air are fishing from the banks, gaze
at us in dull wonder as we thread our tortuous way.

Finally, we learned that we could with profit go no higher. Before
us were two miles of what was described as the roughest sort of
hill road, and the afternoon sun was powerful; so W---- accepted the
invitation of a rustic fisherman to rest with his "women folks" in
a little cabin up the hill a bit. Seeing her safely housed with the
good-natured "cracker" farm-wife, the Doctor, the Boy, and I trudged
off toward Big Bone Lick. The waxy clay of the roadbed had recently
been wetted by a shower; the walking, consequently, was none of the
best. But we were repaid with charming views of hill and vale, a
softly-rolling scene dotted with little gray and brown fields, clumps
of woodland, rail-fenced pastures, and cabins of the crudest sort--for
in the autumn-tide, the curse of malaria haunts the basin of the
Big Bone, and none but he of fortune spurned would care here in this
beauty-spot to plant his vine and fig-tree. Now and then our path
leads us across the winding creek, which in these upper reaches
tumbles noisily over ledges of jagged rock, above which luxuriant
sycamores, and elms, and maples arch gracefully. At each picturesque
fording-place, with its inevitable watering-pool, are stepping-stones
for foot pilgrims; often a flock of geese are sailing in the pool,
with craned necks and flapping wings hissing defiance to disturbers of
their sylvan peace.

The travelers we meet are on horseback--most of them the
yellow-skinned, hollow-cheeked folk, with lack-luster eyes, whom we
note in the cabin doors, or dawdling about their daily routine.
On nearing the Lick, two young horsewomen, out of the common, look
interestedly at us, and I stop to inquire the way, although the
village spire is peering above the tree-tops yonder. Pretty, buxom,
sweet-faced