beautiful blue sky above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the
velvet neck ridged with veins and muscles, the body already buried in
black ooze. And such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on
her side, opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek
resignation to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was
plunging and battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce,
furious, red cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding
inexorable abysm under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her
own species browsing securely just out of reach.

They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of reach
of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief cannot be
distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has been proved to
mean goring of the rescuer.

The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world about
which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad poetry.

Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a certain
habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a third and
most distant settlement.

The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou again, and
the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland and forest.
Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great branches bent down
almost to the water,--quite even with high water,--covered with
forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and with vines that swept our
heads as we passed under them, drooping now and then to trail in the
water, a plaything for the fishes, and a landing-place for amphibious
insects. The sun speckled the water with its flickering patterns,