The flatboat continued its course, and some slight signs of civilization
began to appear at long intervals. Towards the end of a beautiful day in
June, six weeks after our departure from New Orleans, the flatboat stopped
at the pass of Lake Chicot.[13] The sun was setting in a belt of gray
clouds. Our men fastened their vessel securely and then cast their eyes
about them.

"Ah!" cried Mario, "I do not like this place; it is inhabited." He pointed
to a wretched hut half hidden by the forest. Except two or three little
cabins seen in the distance, this was the first habitation that had met
our eyes since leaving the Mississippi.[14]

A woman showed herself at the door. She was scarcely dressed at all. Her
feet were naked, and her tousled hair escaped from a wretched handkerchief
that she had thrown upon her head. Hidden in the bushes and behind the
trees half a dozen half-nude children gazed at us, ready to fly at the
slightest sound. Suddenly two men with guns came out of the woods, but at
the sight of the flatboat stood petrified. Mario shook his head.

"If it were not so late I would take the boat farther on."

[Yet he went hunting with 'Tino and Gordon along the shore, leaving the
father of Françoise and Suzanne lying on the deck with sick headache,
Joseph fishing in the flatboat's little skiff, and the women and children
on the bank, gazed at from a little distance by the sitting figures of the
two strange men and the woman. Then the hunters returned, supper was
prepared, and both messes ate on shore. Gordon and Mario joining freely in
the conversation of the more cultivated group, and making altogether a
strange Babel of English, French, Spanish, and Italian.]