es, and when one reached that dense place,
unless he was betrayed, it would be a matter of impossibility to catch
him. Long before the war you could not take up a newspaper published
in this part of the State but what you would see several cuts of a
negro absconding with a stick on his shoulder and a pack on one end of
it, with the following advertisement:

"Notice! $500 Reward! Ran away from the subscriber, on the
night of June 18th, my negro man, Simon. He had on, when
last seen, a pair of light pants, with a black patch on the
seat of the same. He is slue-footed, knock-kneed, and bends
over a little when walking. He may be making his way to the
Dismal Swamp. I will pay the above reward for his
apprehension, or his lodgment in some jail, so that I can
get him again.

"JOE JONES."

I knew of an instance just before the late war where a gentleman by
the name of Augustus Holly, Bertie county, N. C., had a slave to run
away, who was known to be a desperate character. He knew that he had
gone to the Dismal Swamp, and to get him, his master offered a reward
of $1,000 for his apprehension, dead or alive. The person who caught
him is still living. I saw the negro when he was brought to Suffolk
and lodged in jail. He had been shot at several times, but was little
hurt. He had on a coat that was impervious to shot, it being thickly
wadded with turkey feathers. Small shot were the only kind used to
shoot runaway slaves, and it was very seldom the case that any ever
penetrated far enough to injure. I know three persons now living who
were runaway slave catchers, but the late war stripped them of their
occupation. They were courageous and men of nerve.

CHAPTER II.

TO GROW UP AGAIN IN A JUNGLE.

But little work is now done in the Dismal Swamp, and it will again
soon become a howling wilderness, a hiding place for the bears,
wild-cats, snakes and everything hideous. The bamboo and rattan will
rule supreme, and, like the banyan tree, will form an impenetrable
jungle. But a few years will be required for its accomplishment, and
without an axe you could not move a foot.

G. P. R. James, the British Consul, who was stationed at Norfolk when
he wrote his novel entitled "The Old Dominion," and which was a
history of "Nat Turner's War," (as it is called) in Southampton
county, states that a young mother, with her infant, fled to the
Dismal Swam