and bayous to-day have not the faintest idea of what they were [il zété]
in 1795.

Great vines hung down from lofty trees that shaded the banks and crossed
one another a hundred--a thousand--ways to prevent the boat's passage and
retard its progress, as if the devil himself was mixed in it; and,
frankly, I believe that he had something to do with us in that cavern.
Often our emigrants were forced to take their axes and hatchets in hand to
open a road. At other times tree-trunks, heaped upon one another,
completely closed a bayou. Then think what trouble there was to unbar that
gate and pass through. And, to make all complete, troops of hungry
alligators clambered upon the sides of our flatboat with jaws open to
devour us. There was much outcry; I fled, Alix fled with me, Suzanne
laughed. But our men were always ready for them with their guns.

FOOTNOTES:
[12] Flowing, not into, but out of, the Mississippi, and, like it, towards
the Gulf.--Translator.




VI.

THE TWICE-MARRIED COUNTESS.


But with all the sluggishness of the flatboat, the toils, the anxieties,
and the frights, what happy times, what gay moments, we passed together on
the rough deck of our rude vessel, or in the little cells that we called