Occasionally, however, the explorer of these Southern woods, would suddenly come upon a cypress swamp, and he would there behold the incarnation of all that is dismal in a landscape,--especially if, as when I first beheld one, the time was just before twilight, and the slanting rays of the sun had ceased to penetrate the masses of the forest foliage. A picture, however finely wrought, would fail to give an idea of the utter gloom and funereal solemnity of such a scene; and if any lover or hater of humanity should wish to seek a solitude where, unmolested, he could mourn over the wickedness and folly of mankind, and make himself thoroughly miserable, I would advise him to select a spot in full view of a cypress swamp,--and if he will not suffer enough, do enough penance, and weep enough to wash out and atone for the world's sins--his own included,--in the space of the twelve months, then it will not be the fault of the swamp, I can vouch. I do not wonder that the ancients, even aside from their superstitions, selected the cypress as an emblem of death and mourning--for no one can behold that tree in its native solitude and state without thinking of all the friends he had lost, and would be likely to lose for the next hundred years.--Picture to yourself, gentle reader, the bed of a sluggish stream, enriched by the accumulations of vegetable mould for unknown ages, until the water forced itself through a deep, narrow channel, winding hither and thither; that at a former indefinite period, the seeds deposited on this mould germinated, and there arose from its slimy depths, like ghosts that had 'burst their cerements,' the mighty cypress trees; that they continued to grow slowly upward, but toward the base the trunks swelled to undue proportions like the paunches of gluttons--and undoubtedly the cypress is the glutton among trees, as its huge cone-shaped roots are well adapted to the ravenous absorption of air, and the rich liquified food that is forever in process of formation around and above them. And thus they tower up in the midst of their slimy abode, huge, bilious and bloated, and look like a grim array of fallen spirits, which, having attempted to cross into daylight, got stuck in the mud of their mythical Styx. Such is a cypress swamp. In nationality the men of Co. K comprised Americans, Canadians, Provincials, English, Irish, Scotch, French and Germans. In disposition and character, they were nearly as diverse as their nationality; but taken as specimens of the countries they represented, were about as intelligent and respectable a body of men as could well be expected from such material.