If unfortunately they come within reach of his
fusee, he almost invariably brings them down. Then there is a shout
from the children, a yelp from the dogs, and all run to secure the
game; for too often, "No duck, no dinner." Such a home and such
inhabitants were to be seen on Bayou La Fourche forty years ago, and
even now specimens of the genuine breed may there be found, as
primitive as were their ancestors who first ventured a home in the
Mississippi swamps.
The stream known as Bayou La Fourche, or The Fork, is a large stream,
some one hundred yards wide, leaving the Mississippi at the town of
Donaldsonville, eighty miles above the city of New Orleans, running
south-southeast, emptying into the Gulf, through Timbalier Bay, and may
properly be termed one of the mouths of the Mississippi. Its current
movement does not in high water exceed three miles an hour, and when
the Mississippi is at low water, it is almost imperceptible. Large
steamers, brigs, and schooners come into it when the river is at flood,
and carry out three or four hundred tons of freight each at a time.
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