Читать книгу With Sam Houston in Texas онлайн

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The water shoaled rapidly, until waist-high and knee-deep in the mud he forged along, lugging the haversack (which weighed about a ton!), until he emerged at what he had supposed was a low meadow. It had looked like level grass; but he discovered that it wasn’t land, after all. It was a regular swamp; with coarse cane and grass higher than his head, and underfoot a squashy bog in which he sank to his knees again. And the mosquitoes! And the damp heat! Shucks, and twice shucks! But there were no two ways, now. He toiled manfully on, lugging the precious haversack, shoving through the jungle, plumping in the soft boggy turf, not able to see a thing except the cane and grasses, and the mosquitoes that ate him, with the sun boiling him and his feet like lead.

It seemed to be a tremendously wide swamp. He kept a sharp lookout for snakes, and tried his best to make a bee-line by sighting on some tree-tops that, from occasional open spots, he could glimpse far before. His breath came in gasps, his heart thumped, the mosquitoes and the heat were awful, and the perspiration simply poured down his face. He was leaving the river behind, but when he got out of the swamp, then where would he be?