They had gone about a hundred yards up the creek, and its waters here, about thirty feet across and five or six feet deep, were perfectly transparent.

But this silver stream the moment it entered the Mississippi was lost in the great, brown current, swallowed up in an instant by the giant river.
The banks of the creek were low and on either side brilliant wild flowers grew to the very water's edge.

Ferns, lilies, and other plants of deeper hues, were massed in great beds that ran from the creek edges back to the forest.

Tall birds on immensely long and slender legs stood in the shallower water and now and then as quick as a flash of lightning darted down a hooked bill.

Invariably the bill came up with a fish struggling in its grasp.
Beautiful flamingoes hovered about the bank and many birds of brilliant plumage darted from tree to tree.