An Archer's Sojourn in the Okefinokee

LATE in March I entered the northern fringe of the great Okefinokee Swamp, having in mind a plot against the birds, most particularly the ivory-billed woodpeckers. My purpose was to collect facts and to do some good shooting with the bow. The dry conscience of a student had in this instance decorated itself with highly flamboyant garments of poetical stuff made to please a savage imagination. Once more I was alone in a wilderness, with a sennight of absolute freedom before me.

The man who conveyed me, bag and baggage, in his primitive ox-wain, to the dilapidated cabin had gone, promising to return at the week’s end. No sooner was he out of sight than I began to make myself at home by stretching my hammock across one corner of the single large room; and after I had hung my bacon on one side of the fireplace and my bag of meal on the other, and had found a rude corner shelf for the rest of my simple supplies, out I went to look around, Getting one’s hearings is of importance before beginning a campaign.

In front of the cabin, half a bowshot from the shutterless doorway, ran a sluggish, ditchlike stream, four yards wide and of a color suggesting weak coffee. The water had no bad taste, however, being quite free of vegetable or mineral impurities except the coloring matter, which must have come from dead leaves. All around stretched a heavy wood, here and there undergrown with cane. The cabin stood on what the Crackers call a “ knob,” which is a barely perceptible rise of the ground. It had been built by a party of surveyors, years agone.

A profound stillness pervaded the forest ; the silence was unbroken ; not even a bird twittered ; and so my first impression was that I should see little of avian life round about. This is not an uncommon experience in the wild woods, as I "well knew, yet I felt a wave of misgiving pass through me. The sun was nearly down, and it was a decided relief to get my axe and chop some fat pine, or ” lightwood, “ as they say in the South. Moreover, while my working mood was on. I constructed a shutter, or curtain, of brush for the cabin’s doorway.

An outline of the Okefinokee Swamp is shown on any good map of Georgia and Florida. My locus may be approximately found by drawing a line exactly southeast from Blackshear, in the former State, a distance of twenty miles. Immediately west of the cabin, a vast shallow pond, thickly set with cypresstrees and fringed with cane and stretches of aquatic bushes and lily pads, marked the beginning of the swamp proper. Behind this gloomy region the sun went down, filling the treetops with a strange glow, while I was cooking my frugal dinner.

Doubtless the enjoyment to be had from

is due somewhat to temperament, and not every man will be able to get even a smack of it. As for myself, each new camping-place proves my susceptibility to the charm of solitude. A torch of lightwood burning on the sand hearth tilled the cabin with its yellow splendor while night came on, and I find in my book of notes the following entry : —

“ First dinner eaten. Comfortable cabin. Pitch dark out-doors, with a fog brewing. Cool enough to make fire pleasant to sit by.”

Another note, jotted down on rising next morning, might be thought contradictory of the phrase “ comfortable cabin ; ” for it records that "I lay awake an hour late last night. The moon, which arose toward midnight, got the better of the fog, and stared at me through a large hole in the roof. What awoke me was a big owl. It lit on the rib-pole overhead with a startling whack. A little later it gave a yell savage enough to chill one’s blood, and loud enough to compare well with a panther’s scream. I was sitting bolt upright in my hammock fumbling for my bow, first thing I knew.”

It is morning, I might say the first morning, after settling in a new camp, that gives the controlling impression. I awoke with a distinct thrill of delight, hearing a twitter in the trees, and a fresh breeze was playing upon me through the spaces between the logs of my cabin’s wall. I bounced out, and ran, stripped to Adamic freedom, down to the little stream, a tributary or branch of the Satilla, and wallowed in its chill water as long as I dared. Then a hard rub-down, clothes, and breakfast.

At the time of which I write there probably was not a dwelling within ten miles of me. Since then a railroad has been built across part of the swamp hard by. During my stay in the cabin and my excursions round about it I but twice heard sounds reminding me of mankind, and I saw no human being. The following entries in my notebook refresh my memory : —

“ While eating breakfast heard an ivory-billed woodpecker cackling far over in the swamp. — Had a sloppy, happy time. Went after Campephilus, and got a wood-duck. — Shall have to carry two quivers when I go into the watery parts of this region to shoot: heavy arrows in one, light in other.”

I remember that first long and fruitless chase, following the ivory-bill by his voice without once seeing him. It was mostly wading in from two to six inches of water, between close-set cypresses and water-oaks. Doubtless the wary bird could hear a long way the splashing noise of my feet, and so easily kept beyond my vision. At all events, I had my toilsome tramp in vain, save the killing of the wood - duck on the stream near my cabin.

My next book-entry is explicit: “Got back at high noon. Plucked my duck, a fine fat young fellow, not a year old. It was a rattling good shot. Hit him at forty yards with a heavy, blunt arrow. Had got nearly back to cabin when I spied him on the brook. Shall have a roast of him for dinner this evening.”

On a later page I find this: “ Read nearly all the afternoon in Virgil’s Georgics, and heard thrushes sing in the boskets eastward. Have eaten almost the whole of my duck. Delicious with bacon and ash-cake. Sorted and mended arrows. Am bound to get an ivory-bill tomorrow.”

But I did not even hear an ivory-billed woodpecker next day, nor yet the day after. My notes show that I explored a considerable pine ridge two miles northeast of the cabin. “ Saw large holes in dead trees, old nests of either log-cocks or ivory-bills. Two small, lank deer ran past me just after I had heard a gun in the remote distance.” I remember that I found myself involuntarily skulking at the thought of a sportsman with a gun being anywhere in my wilderness. A panther would have been preferable.

Most of my notes were written by the light of fat pine splinters, at night, between dinner and bed. Here is one of a self-conscious turn: “ Wonder how it would affect an average man of affairs to look in upon me here ! This forlorn cabin deep in a primitive wood ; I sitting tailor-fashion on the ground writing by torchlight; my bows leaning in the corner ; beside them my quivers full of arrows; yonder my hammock; a smell of scorched bacon and broiled birds still lingering on the air. How little suffices to make a willing man happy ! ”

The chief element in my enjoyment of a sojourn like the one now under discussion is the sense of loneliness and isolation always uppermost. Doubtless a perfect understanding of the anachronism in archery makes the bowman of to-day seek primeval surroundings. I can say for myself that my first thought, when the time has come for an outing, is of some sylvan region where nature has never been seriously disturbed. There I can find true recreation. My cabin in the Okefinokee suited me, because it would not have suited any other civilized man, and because the life it offered was absolute freedom.

The big owl came every night, hitting the rib-pole harder each time, and yawping in a way that I could not get, used to. What came of it appears in the following entry : “ Was on the qui vive for my owl last night, and when it came I grabbed my bow, and peeped and peered, trying to get a glimpse of the monster through some crack in the roof, but must have failed had it not changed its perch from the rib-pole to the top of the rickety stick-and-dirt chimney. Then I saw how big it was. its entire bulk showing against the sky through the rent in the clapboards. I drew a steel-headed arrow clean up to the point and let drive. That ended my trouble.” I found the old fellow next morning a rod from the house, dead enough ; but my arrow had clipped right through, and gone I never knew where.

It has been my luck to have owls bother me in my lonely camps. More than once the persistent whining of screech-owls has made me leave a place otherwise very attractive. As for the big bird that I knocked off the chimney-top, he probably had a better claim than I to possession of the cabin ; but I could not afford to be ousted by him. Indeed, so attached to the place had I grown that when my man of the ox - wain came promptly to bear me away, I sent for some more bacon, meal, rice, and sugar, and stayed ten days longer.

Spring came on with a rush in the swamp ; everything flaunted rich greenery. By the 3d of April it was like June. Still there were not many birds, until one day they deluged the forest. It was as if a sudden tide had borne them up from the south. At daybreak I heard their chattering and twittering, their whistling, their warbling, a very pandemonium of early throat - swellings and syrinx-shaking ; above them all the voice of an ivory-bill, a clarion call to his mate and a challenge to me.

Very few are the naturalists who have studied the ivory - billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in its native haunts. I have been surprised to find that, many persons priding themselves upon their ornithology are not aware that the log-cock and the ivory-bill belong to different genera. More than a hundred letters came to me in response to a slight paper I had printed on this subject, and in most of them I was informed that the ivory-bill had, until a few years past, been a bird quite common in the heavy woods near where each of the letter-writers lived. Of course it was the log-cock (Hylotomus pileatus), not the ivory-bill, that these persons remembered. The former is the great black woodpecker, about the size of a crow, which fifty years ago was common over a large part of our country east of the Mississippi River, and in some places farther west. But the ivory-bill, larger and more beautiful, has always been a rare bird. Neither Wilson nor Audubon knew much about it at first-hand, and nobody since their day has found out anything very notable on the subject. Hence my visit to the Okefinokee, and the enthusiasm of the following entries in my book : —

“ Was out this morning at daycrack. Had heard an ivory-bill trumpeting eastward. Forgot to take my souse in the brook ; ate not a bite of breakfast; seized my tackle and scurried away, buckling my quiver-belt as I ran. Delicious morning, — green leaves, sweet smells, and an ambrosial breeze. My rubber boots felt almost cold to my feet and legs when I waded the brook. Had a glimpse of Campophilus while I was making a detour southward to pass between him and the swamp. Knew him by the sparkling white he showed and by a flare of carmine. I ran through a cane-brake, then over an acre of fallen dead trees and into a bay thicket, where I found good cover under which to creep. For a while I did not hear him ; then he began hammering on a ghostly, barkless old pine. I could see parts of the tree, but not the bird. What blows ! They sounded strangely through the woods. When I came within sixty yards of the tree, I let myself down and crawled to the thicket’s edge. There he was, his broad back toward me, and his flaming red head flashing up and down while he pecked, or to this side and that when he peeped around the trunk to see if there was any danger. Now was my time. He was a magnificent specimen, in full plumage. Had an arrow ready,—the best of my lot, — pewter - headed, feathered with peacock. Drew up, but found my left arm shaky. Buck fever at sight of a woodpecker !

“ I was excited. I knew very well that one shot would close the incident. Moreover, I should probably not have another such opportunity during my outing. And it came into my mind that the chances were many against hitting that bird. I let down my bow-arm and rubbed it, meantime trying to settle myself. But my big bird was about to fly, I knew by a certain wag of his body. Up went my bow again, and I pulled steadily, swiftly, with just a pause for aim. Aim ! If I had time, I could write an essay showing that, in archery, aim is a point of life rich with a subtile extract of delight. You condense all your capacity and press it hard there. Your lungs are full, your brain is drawn to a focus, your steadfast eyes glitter. Look at that left arm ! Outthrust like a boxer’s when he punches, rigid as a castiron bar, it points the way ; and the right arm drawn back as if to strike, three fingers of its hand hooked upon the string. There’s a statue for you ! When you loose, the old note of Apollo rings far and free. And of course I missed. Such is luck ; but it was a close call. My arrow’s pewter head hit with a loud ‘ rap-p-p-p,’ which echoed like an axestroke, an inch or two (call it three) above him and to the right.”

I killed two perfect specimens during my stay and examined several old nests, besides observing with my glass a whole morning’s work of a pair of ivory-bills at nest-making. They had chosen a large pine-tree, dead for years and quite stripped of its boughs, and were delving a hole into it just below a projecting knot. I could not get very near them, as the tree stood in an open space ; but with the glass I could see all their proceedings, of which here is my note made on the spot: —

“ Male ivory-bill at work about fifty feet up, making a round hole about four inches in diameter. He strikes five or six blows, then flings out fragments of rotten wood. Very suspicious and watchful, stopping often to look all about, wagging his head. Great red topknot and snow-white beak. When he reaches into the hole he disappears, save his tail, which is slightly spread. Female came and relieved him, going briskly to work in his place. He flew away.”

From what I know of other woodpeckers, it probably was a matter of two weeks’ time finishing that excavation. The ivory-bill usually digs deep, making a jug-shaped cavity, the entrance being at the top of the neck. I have examined many of these pits, mostly in the wildest lowlands of Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida, and they are all of the same form, albeit differing in the length and course of the neck, which is controlled by the nature of the wood through which it is dug.

Day after day I was tireless in my explorations. The great swamp had so many secrets to taunt me withal that I could not be idle. Not even the dark nights could keep me in the cabin. Once I groped my way for a long distance northward, trying to get a shot at some large animal which I could hear, but could not see. Of this incident I find the following note : —

“ Awoke last night. Some animal sniffing at a crack near my hammock. Listened ; heard it shuffling along in the leaves ; then it sniffed again and made a raucous sound, between a whine and a cough. Got up slyly, slipped on boots, took bow and quiver, and went to the door. Heard a snarling cry ; not loud, but strange. Slipped through the brush door-curtain and stepped forth, ready to shoot. Footfalls just around corner of cabin. Very dark ; could not see, but went in that direction with bow half drawn. Animal hissed like a cat and moved away slowly. I followed, straining my eyes. Sky clear, packed with stars ; a pleasant temperature, no air stirring ; wood still, silent, gloomy. Followed the thing on ; heard it trot through a pool of water and stop ; felt my way a little farther; thought I saw it ; let drive at it; but off obliquely to the right it snarled and moved on. So it led me a stumbling, fumbling chase, all to no end, save that when at last it loped away for good. I discovered that I did not know where I was, and I lay down right there and slept till daylight, to find that I was nearly a mile from the cabin.

When I got back, lo, my bacon was gone ! ”

Every sportsman of adequate experience will understand the following entry :

“ While I had the bacon I ate very little of it. Now it’s gone I am raving hungry for it.”

Wherefore it behooved me to shoot something edible, and a later note runs thus : “ Breakfast, dinner, and supper, rice and ash - cake. Out all the morning, viciously alert; tramped miles in swamp and on hammock ; saw nothing to shoot.”

Next day I had better luck, when I found a marshy glade with an irregular pond in the middle, and had two hours of unmixed delight skulking from point to point, under cover of grass tufts and marsh shrubs, outwitting some killdees. It is of indescribable interest to me now, remembering how I shot till my arms ached. The birds were shy, and the shots were long; moreover, I had to use my tackle in very trying attitudes, as I could not stand upright without discovering myself to my quarry. The arrows would hit in the mud and knock up a spray of it close to the flickering, seesawing game, and then what flying ! But the glade seemed to have them charmed, for not a bird left it; they merely winged a circle or two and dropped in another part. I got a small bag of them in the long run, — five the record states, — and in due time spitted them at my cabin fire. A laconic note sums up the result: —

“Birds like tangled shoe - strings; meat clung to skeleton as if sewed fast. Fragrant enough, but dry as chips. And now it is raining.”

I had to dig a trench in the ground to drain out the water falling into the cabin through the ample rent in the roof ; but, fortunately, my hammock was in a dry place, and I took great care of the provisions. It rained all night, furiously a part of the time, and I slept half awake. Next day was clear, cool, glorious, with a sea-smell in the air. This fine weather held during the rest of my stay, bringing out the full power of spring, and I was loath to go: almost tempted, against duty, to dicker with my ox-wain man for another week. Any reader must sympathize when the following notes meet his eye : —

“ To-day has been my best, and it is my last here. Found an enchanted spot this morning, a pond lightly fringed with rushes. High bank of dry sand on one side, where I lay and dreamed, looking through a window-like opening in the growth at the shallow water’s edge thirty yards away. I could see clean across to the rushes, reeds, and heavily wooded swamp beyond. And while I looked there came a stately white heron of full plumage wading across my vision. Slowly, step by step, with awkward yet supremely graceful motion, it passed and was gone. That was a poem of the Okefinokee.”

“ Good thing men are not all alike, else this solemn old swamp would to-day be swarming with pleasure-seekers, and my occupation would be gone.”

“If there were nothing to prevent, how gladly I would go on living here, eating ash-cake and rice, shooting, studying, being free ! ”

“ For seventeen days I have been here, as happy, healthy, and busy as any bird, and it has cost me, all told, three dollars and forty cents !”

There may be malaria in the Okefinokee at certain seasons, though persons who are supposed to know say the contrary. I was not troubled with mosquitoes, saw few snakes, no frogs, and the air felt and smelt pure. Twice there was fog at night, which lifted soon after sunrise without disagreeable influence. I drank the water of the stream by my cabin, and found it good enough. No sweeter sleep ever refreshed ft tired man than fell upon me night after night in my hammock.

I could tell the greatest stories of my bow - shooting, had I archers to listen, for I did keep the air buzzing with my arrows early and late, and therein was the chief fascination of it all. 1 took great comfort in my notebook, making of it a familiar confidant. Reading the pages now gives me wafts from the swamp, and I hear the birds at dawn begin to flute from distance to distance.

In one sense “desolation” is the fit word for the Okefinokee, and in every sense the whole region is, and probably will always be, a solitude given over to solemnity and silence. Yet it has its glowing spots, its nooks and corners of intense expression. By the following note — my book has many like it — a glimpse is afforded of an oasis, so to call it, in the plashy cypress waste: —

“ This day, 9 April, I found a place where the ground was almost hidden under yellow flowers of the pitcher-plant, acres and acres of them. They have a moonshine flash when the wind tosses them; and when still the whole field shimmers dreamily, a smouldering fire of straw-colored gold.”

Apparently, there are few birds’ nests in the swamp proper, but in the thickets and brakes which fringe it around I saw many. Kven the log-cocks and ivory-bills choose the pine-trees rather than the cypresses. Near the sluggish little streams there are wild haw thickets. In these I noted jays, cardinal grosbeaks, various thrushes, and many warblers. Of woodpeckers, my list contains ivory-bill, logcock, golden-wing, red-cockade, red-belly, downy, hairy, yellow-belly, and red-head. The belted kingfisher was abundant beside the streams and open ponds, but herons were scarce.

Departing from the Okefinokee, I had my Parthian shot, as this note reminds me: “Wagon had not gone two miles when I saw a pair of jays in a clump of bushes. The first glimpse of them showed something unusual in their coloring. Jumped out of wagon with bow and quiver. Driver waited while I went sneaking along. Birds were Florida jays. Got one, male, at second shot. A beautiful specimen, and far north of its reputed limit.”

Among my many outings, I remember none with more pleasure than that which I have named An Archer’s Sojourn in the Okefinokee.

Maurice Thompson.