Our way lies through wide stretches of uncultivated lands, dotted here and there by negro huts with black babies and pigs tumbling together in the mire. In the course of a few hours we emerge from these uninteresting wilds, and are running through the great swamps which extend for miles along either side of our iron road, and are strictly impassable for either man or beast, though it is said that hundreds of poor human creatures in the old days chafed and fretted and grew discontented with their condition of life, and in their foolish endeavour to escape from it were lost in these wilds. Who knows what cries to God for help and mercy have gone up from the inner gloom of these dismal swamps?--cries that perhaps the angels heard and came down from heaven to answer. Although we are journeying through perfectly flat country, with never an undulating wave of land in sight, the scenery is ever changing, and never presents the same picture to the eye for two minutes together. There is, of course a certain monotony in the character of the natural pageant that is gliding past us, but the combinations vary both in form and colour, now advancing, now receding as we flash past them; the air is full of light, and queer-looking grey birds rise up and wheel in eddying circles over our heads, flapping their wings, and uttering strange cries, which our engine’s voice has not strength enough to smother. The idea of a swamp had always presented itself to our mind’s eye as a vast expanse of shiny, slushy soil, half mud, half water, with here and there a rank undergrowth of bushes and stiff grass, and briers, through which it must be a melancholy task to travel,--but it is not so. In travelling through these swampy regions the prospect is neither a dull nor an uninteresting one; whole forests of grand old trees rise up from the watery waste, the rich varied foliage growing so luxuriantly, and in such impenetrable masses that scarce a ray of sunshine comes glinting through. We feel as though by some strange accident we have been caught up by some modern magician, clothed in steel with a heart of iron, and whirled along through the forest primeval. For hours, nay, for the whole day long we speed through this world of green, now and again the great trees turning their leafy arms into a perfect arch above our heads, as we go thundering on. Some of our fellow travellers go to sleep, others yawn over a book which they have not energy enough to read, some get out the cards and play poker or _écarté_, according as the spirit of gambling moves them; we hear murmured complaints, “There is nothing to see,” and “What a horribly monotonous journey.”