a few miles
above the ferry at the Point of Rocks, and is unknown to the thousands
of persons who are whirled past there every year in the railroad
trains.

This island is about fifty acres in extent, and is bordered with
stately oaks to the very river's edge--whose waters lave their roots;
its margin is paved with pearly pebbles, while the drooping branches
of the trees, festooned with tangled vines of every hue, hang down in
glorious clusters, toying with the blue stream which runs beneath. The
scenery here is truly enchanting. Islands of every size seem floating
in a charmed atmosphere; to pass one pleasing spot is but to disclose
another more beautiful than the last. Some are covered with a forest
growth; others cultivated, and waving in the summer breeze with yellow
ripening grain; and yet others are overgrown with varied shrubs,
filled with singing birds, and wild flowers breathing perfume.

I had been fishing--had fished the river from the ferry up above and
around the island. I was well satisfied with the day's sport, and was
sitting in the stern of the boat in a sort of day dream. Jasper, my
boatman, was gently guiding the little vessel to keep it from striking
the many projecting rocks, as well as to prevent it from gliding too
rapidly down the current. The river, changed to a dark green color,
from the reflected foliage, ran now deep and sluggish against the huge
boulders which stand defiantly up: now over shallow places, shining
with silver sand, fretting itself into white foam and flinging up jets
of spray as if in anger. Waking from my reverie, I said:

"Jasper, that is a tranquil-looking island; to whom does it belong?"

Jasper shook his woolly head as if he were puzzled, and with the air
of a person about to impart some awful secret, replied:

"Dat don't belong to nobody; dat's haunted."

"Haunted, Jasper! that is impossible. There are no such things as
haunted places."

"Well, massa," he replied, his faith still unshaken, "dat's what I was
tole long, long years ago when I was a chile. Ye could hear noises
comin' fum da like distress, and dem sounds war jined wid de talkin'
ob men."

"Very likely, but such sounds came from persons on the island, and
they were living, just as you and I are."

"Dar war sounds," answered my boatman, "but da warn't no people on dat
island. Dem sounds warn't ob dis world."

Such an opinion could not be weakened, for my dusky companion had been
raised in this loc