saw-grass, stretching away to a bluish-green line of woods that
closed the horizon, and imperfectly drained in the driest season
by a slimy little bayou that continually vomited foul water into
the sea. The point had been much discussed by geologists; it
proved a godsend to United States surveyors weary of attempting
to take observations among quagmires, moccasins, and arborescent
weeds from fifteen to twenty feet high. Savage fishermen, at
some unrecorded time, had heaped upon the eminence a hill of
clam-shells,--refuse of a million feasts; earth again had been
formed over these, perhaps by the blind agency of worms working
through centuries unnumbered; and the new soil had given birth to
a luxuriant vegetation. Millennial oaks interknotted their roots
below its surface, and vouchsafed protection to many a frailer
growth of shrub or tree,--wild orange, water-willow, palmetto,
locust, pomegranate, and many trailing tendrilled things, both
green and gray. Then,--perhaps about half a century ago,--a few
white fishermen cleared a place for themselves in this grove, and
built a few palmetto cottages, with boat-houses and a wharf,
facing the bayou. Later on this temporary fishing station became
a permanent settlement: homes constructed of heavy timber and
plaster mixed with the trailing moss of the oaks and cypresses
took the places of the frail and fragrant huts of palmetto.
Still the population itself retained a floating character: it
ebbed and came, according to season and circumstances, according
to luck or loss in the tilling of the sea. Viosca, the founder
of the settlement, always remained; he always managed to do well.

He owned several luggers and sloops, which were hired out upon
excellent terms; he could make large and profitable contracts
with New Orleans fish-dealers; and he was vaguely suspected of