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High bulrushes, tall flags; thick, sedgy vegetation beneath; the ground, firm enough below at first, soon became quaking and felt strangely elastic under their feet. The marsh was here of great width, and shortly they had advanced a considerable distance from firm ground, and were in the midst of the Swamp. And here the path became more and more difficult.
The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer over their shoulders. They are very modest, tractable, and obedient to their husbands. Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is, perhaps, the state of the greatest part of mankind.
Through the jungle of reeds and bulrushes in the foreground this figure advanced; and with the same unaccountable impulse that had coerced him in his dream, he answered the whistle of the advancing figure. On that signal it directed its course straight toward him. It mounted the low wall, and, standing there, looked into the graveyard.
This was studded with small round lakes, and with islets of an emerald verdure. From the bosom of the marsh itself, rose bulrushes and pollard willows, towered over by gigantic noisy reeds. The stream was thickly strewn with the pure honours of the water lily.
I waded a few steps and then plunged into deep water again. Almost before I knew, I was among the bulrushes, with my feet in the slime of the bank. With feverish haste I scrambled through the reeds and up through roots and undergrowth to the hard soil. I was across, but, alas, I had lost my only weapon.
These birds are very industrious in constructing their nests, which they build with bulrushes and the small leaves of the palm, and other trees, in a very curious and ingenious manner.
Yesterday evening bicycled farther in the direction of Torre Astura, which seemed quite near in its solitude. The dunes were covered with thick bushes of lentisk, myrtle and similar shrubs; every step bruised some scented thing. Along the sands, black, hard and full of coloured shells, was a strip of bulrushes.
"You'll soon get used to it," replied Snap. "It's always the first plunge that takes the breath out of a fellow." Giant came in next, diving from the rock. Whopper followed more slowly, putting in first one foot and then the other. "Moses in the bulrushes!" he gasped. "Say, this water is about half ice, isn't it?" And he drew back again.
It is easy to talk about crossing a river, and looking to-day at the slender streak on the map I am amazed that so small a thing should have given me such ugly tremors. Yet I have rarely faced a job I liked so little. The stream ran yellow and sluggish under the clear moon. On the near side a thick growth of bush clothed the bank, but on the far side I made out a swamp with tall bulrushes.
Jogues sprang into the bulrushes, and might have escaped; but when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the Iroquois, he had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his hiding-place, and gave himself up to the astonished victors. A few of them had remained to guard the prisoners; the rest were chasing the fugitives.
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