forced through a narrow passage to the farther side. Here it had to be
calked, and while that was being done we improvised a dressing-room in
the shadow of our big trunks. During the trip I had to keep the time,
therefore properly to secure belt and watch was always an anxious part
of my toilet. The boat is now repacked, and while Annie and Reeney are
washing cups I have scribbled, wishing much that mine were the hand of
an artist.

_Friday morn, July 18._ (_House of Colonel K., on Yazoo River._)--After
leaving the raft yesterday all went well till noon, when we came to a
narrow place where an immense tree lay clear across the stream. It
seemed the insurmountable obstacle at last. We sat despairing what to
do, when a man appeared beside us in a pirogue. So sudden, so silent was
his arrival that we were thrilled with surprise. He said if we had a
hatchet he could help us. His fairy bark floated in among the branches
like a bubble, and he soon chopped a path for us, and was delighted to
get some matches in return. He said the cannon we heard yesterday were
in an engagement with the ram _Arkansas_, which ran out of the Yazoo
that morning. We did not stop for dinner to-day, but ate a hasty lunch
in the boat, after which nothing but a small piece of bread was left.
About two we reached the forks, one of which ran to the Yazoo, the
other to the Old River. Max said the right fork was our road; H. said
the left, that there was an error in Max's map; but Max steered into the
right fork. After pulling about three miles he admitted his mistake and
turned back; but I shall never forget Old River. It was the vision of a
drowned world, an illimitable waste of dead waters, stretching into a
great, silent, desolate forest.

Just as we turned into the right way, down came the rain so hard and
fast we had to stop on the bank. It defied trees or umbrellas, and