ad stream was Jointer Creek, and I ascended it to find a spot of
high ground upon which to camp. It was now low water, and the surface of
the marshes was three or four feet above my head. After much anxious
searching, and a great deal of rowing against the last of the ebb, a
forest of pines and palmetto-trees was reached on Colonel's Island, at a
point about four miles--across the marshes and Brunswick River--from the
interesting old town of Brunswick, Georgia.

The soft, muddy shores of the hammock were in one place enveloped in a
thicket of reeds, and here I rested upon my oars to select a convenient
landing-place. The rustling of the reeds suddenly attracted my
attention. Some animal was crawling through the thicket in the direction
of the boat. My eyes became fixed upon the mysterious shaking and waving
of the tops of the reeds, and my hearing was strained to detect the
cause of the crackling of the dry rushes over which this unseen creature
was moving. A moment later my curiosity was satisfied, for there emerged
slowly from the covert an alligator nearly as large as my canoe. The
brute's head was as long as a barrel; his rough coat of mail was
besmeared with mud, and his dull eyes were fixed steadily upon me. I was
so surprised and fascinated by the appearance of this huge reptile that
I remained immovable in my boat, while he in a deliberate manner entered
the water within a few feet of me. The hammock suddenly lost all its
inviting aspect, and I pulled away from it faster than I had approached.
In the gloom I observed two little hammocks, between Colonel's Island
and the Brunswick River, which seemed to be near Jointer's Creek, so I
followed the tortuous thoroughfares until I was within a quarter of a
mile of one of them.

Pulling my canoe up a narrow creek towards the largest hammock, until
the creek ended in the lowland, I was cheered by the sight of a small
house in a grove of live-oaks, to reach which I was obliged to abandon
my canoe and attempt to cross the soft marsh. The tide was now rising
rapidly, and it might be necessary for me to swim some inland creek
before I could arrive at the upland.

An oar was driven into the soft mud of the marsh and the canoe tied to
it, for I knew that the whole country, with the exception of the hammock
near by, would be under water at flood-tide. Floundering through mud and
pressing aside the tall, wire-like grass of the lowland, which entangled
my feet, frequently leap