And then Atalanta, in a country that is very beautiful, but with that poetry of malaria which suggests a peril in such beauty. And gradually the land becomes swampy, and the old trees, hung with moss, stand ankle-deep in brown stagnant water. The glades are all pools, and where-ever a vista opens, there is a long bayou stretching down between aisles of sombre trees. It is wonderful in its unnatural beauty, this forest standing in a lagoon. The world was like this when the Deluge was subsiding. There is a mysterious silence about the gloomy trees. Not a bird lives among them. But in the sullen water, there are turtles moving, and now and then a snake makes a moment's ripple on the dull pools. Sunlight never strikes in, and as I looked, I could not help remembering all the horrors of the slave-hunt, and the murder at the end of it, in the dark depths of some such horrid brake as these we pass. What a spot for legends to gather round! Has no one ever invented the swamp-goblin? For an hour and more we pass through this eerie country, and then comes a change to higher land with a splendid growth of pine and walnut and oak all healthily rooted in dry ground. But towards evening we come again into the swamps, and the sun goes down rosy-red behind the water-logged trees, till their trunks stand out black against the ruddy sky and the pools about their feet take strange tints of copper and purpled bronze. And suddenly we flash across the track of the narrow-gauge line to New Orleans--and such a sight! The line pierces an avenue, straight as an arrow, for miles and miles through the belt of forest. On either side along the track lie ditches filled with water. But to-night the ditches seem filled with logwood dye, and the wonderful vista through the deep green trees is closed as with a curtain, by the crimson west! It was only a glimpse we got of it, but as long as I live I shall never forget it, the most marvellous sight of all my life. No, not even sunrise upon the Himalayas, nor the moonlight on the palm-garden in Mauritius--two miracles of simple loveliness that are beyond words--could surpass that glimpse through the Texan forest. It was not in the least like this earth. Beyond that crimson curtain might have been heaven, or there might have been hell. But I am not content to believe that it was merely Louisiana.