His companions, thus brought to a halt, also stared round them, though in silence, and the wild and dreadful desolation and loneliness of the scene probably excited no very pleasurable feelings in them, for, avoiding each other's eyes, during several minutes they gazed upon the wild boundless landscape of swamp and water. Becher, however, looked shyly, sidelong, at the men who had accompanied him, and suddenly began to whistle a waltz with all his might. The tailor turned round, surprised, towards him, and said, "Yes, a nice time for whistling!" The wide expanse spread out before them was by no means calculated to produce an agreeable impression on new comers, particularly upon such as had not been accustomed to a flat country. On their left the muddy flood of the mighty Mississippi rolled rapidly and maliciously by, whilst, from the opposite side of the little brook, beside which they were standing, a sand-bank stretched out in smooth, monotonous, evenness, farther and farther still, into the stream, until, in the grey distance, where the latter took a mighty sweep to the right, it seemed to connect itself with the opposite shore, and to absorb the enormous mass of waters. The other side of the Mississippi also presented to the view a flat landscape of deep forest and swamp, uninterrupted by a single hill. The vegetation was certainly grand, and these gigantic stems, which rose, smooth and faultless, to a height which they had never before contemplated, produced a strange, almost uneasy impression upon the wanderers; then again the wild vines and creepers which wound themselves from stem to stem, the wild and desert-looking fallen masses of wood, often half rotten, the enormous withered trunks, which here and there, as if stifled by the creeping plants, madly stretched their naked giant arms towards heaven, as if supplicating help, gave the whole such a gloomy, forbidding aspect, that the little tailor, after a minute's pause of astonishment, drew a long breath, as though he would have removed something from his heart; at last he turned round to his friends and fellow-travellers behind him, and said-- "Well, I had imagined the thing quite different from this; for if----" To the boundless astonishment of the rest, the tailor had all at once disappeared; but before they had time to advance a step, they already heard, down below, in slime and water, a crying and splashing, which proceeded from their unfortunate comrade, who now, when at last he got firm footing, cried out lustily for help; for he could not comprehend where he was, how he had got there, and whether he had reached the end of his career, or was destined to proceed further and further downwards. "Hallo, below there!" cried Becher, who soon ascertained that the tailor had received no injury, and that there was no further danger--"Hallo, there! is it a good soil? to what depth is it arable?"