At the northern extremity of the Sabine lake, and in the midst of the reed and cypress swamps that extend southwards to the sea, there lies, between the rivers Sabine and Natchez, a narrow tongue of land, which, widening in proportion as the rivers recede, forms a gently swelling eminence, enclosed by the clear and beautiful waters of the two streams. The latter flow through dark thickets of cypress and palmetto, to the lake above named, which, in its turn, is united with the Gulf of Mexico, and it would almost appear as if nature, in a capricious moment, had chosen thus distinctly to mark the boundary of the two vast countries which the Sabine severs. On the right bank of that river rises a black and impenetrable forest, so thickly matted and united by enormous thorns, that even the hunted deer or savanna wolf will rarely attempt an entrance. The earth is overgrown by an impenetrable carpet of creeping plants, under whose treacherous shelter innumerable rattlesnakes, king's-heads, and copperheads, writhe themselves, or lie coiled up on the watch for the wild pigeons, mockingbirds, parroquets, and black squirrels, who share with them the shelter of the thicket. Rarely is the maze broken by a clearing, and where it is so, is seen a chaos of mouldering tree-trunks, uprooted by the frequent tornados, and piled up like some artificial fortification. The wild luxuriance of the place reaches its acme in the neighbourhood of the cypress swamp, but on the further side of that it assumes a softer character, and the perplexed wanderer through these beautiful scenes finds himself on a sudden transported into one of the most enchanting of Mexican landscapes, where the myrtle, the stately tulip-tree, and the palma-christi, alternate with the dark-leaved mangrove, and on the rising grounds the cotton-tree and sycamore spread their silver-green branches above a sward of the tenderest verdure. The whole forest is interwoven, like a vast tent or awning, with the jessamine and the wild vine, which, springing from the ground, grapple themselves to the tree-trunks, ascend to the highest branches, and then again descending, cling to another stem, and creeping from mangrove to myrtle, from magnesia to papaw, from papaw to the tulip-tree, form one vast and interminable bower. The broad belt of land, in the centre of which the waters of the Natchez flow, presents to the beholder a waving and luxuriant field of rustling palmettos, extending from the forest a full half mile to the stream, in whose waters the mangrove and cypress dip their drooping foliage.