The southwestern part of Kentucky and the northwestern part of Tennessee are about as desolate portions of the world as are inhabited by a civilized people. There seems to have been some convulsion of the earth at this point, which is sunk so far below the general level of the whole country as to make it a perpetual swamp. The annual overflow of the Ohio and Mississippi lays the country under water for a distance of many miles, while even in the dryest season, the morasses, sunken lakes, and dense cane-brakes, render it almost impassable, except for people who have been thoroughly acquainted with the locality for years. The sunken lakes are natural curiosities in themselves, and, although they have attracted considerable attention from scientific men, no satisfactory explanation of their causes and phenomena has been found. The country is full of game and the water is alive with fish, so that the necessities of life are easily obtainable. The cane-brakes are wonderful growths of bamboo cane, and they sometimes cover strips of country as much as seventy miles long. In the spring-time, the water rises to such a height that a skiff can navigate freely above and through the tops of the cane; but in dry weather, the stalks grow so closely together that the brake becomes impenetrable to man or beast, except by winding tortuously around the clumps through the comparatively thin portions of the undergrowth. To search for any one wishing to remain concealed therein is like the proverbial attempt to look for a needle in a hay-stack, since a man can pass within ten yards of another without seeing him or being aware of his presence. The only roads which traverse these places are mere cattle paths, which begin at no place and run nowhere; and, unless a man be thoroughly acquainted with the country, he can never tell where any given path will lead him.