A smile, starting from the quiet elder sister, went around the group, directed against the abstracted and somewhat rueful countenance of Joseph, whereat he turned with a better face and said that what the Creator had pronounced very good they could hardly feel free to condemn.

The old father was still more stout of heart.
"These mosquitoes, children, are thought by some to keep the air pure," he said.
"Better keep out of it after sunset," put in the captain.
After that day and night, the prospect grew less repellent.

A gradually matured conviction that New Orleans would not be found standing on stilts in the quagmire enabled the eye to become educated to a better appreciation of the solemn landscape.

Nor was the landscape always solemn.

There were long openings, now and then, to right and left, of emerald-green savannah, with the dazzling blue of the Gulf far beyond, waving a thousand white-handed good-byes as the funereal swamps slowly shut out again the horizon.