University of Virginia Library

CONCORDIA LAKE.[1]

Opposite the high bluffs of “the Natchez” lies
the beautiful country of Concordia, level as the surface
of water, and rich in its soil as it is possible for
earth to be. At present a few large plantations
occupy much of its space, laid off in enormous fields,

where the plough sometimes progresses a mile without
turning in the furrow. In old times the Mississippi
ran through the lower part of Concordia, making
one of those sudden bends where it comes back
almost to the very point of diverging. In one of its
capricious moods, it cut through this thus-formed
isthmus, and ran more directly to the sea, leaving a
kind of horse-shoe furrow to mark the old bed of
the river. The high waters of the spring, bearing
within their bosom the sediment of almost unlimited
caving shores, deposited in time at the mouth of the
“cut off” the solid earth, and thus formed, as has
been done a hundred times before and is constantly
doing now, the bed of an inland lake, bordering the
shores of the Mississippi. Thus originated the
beautiful lake of Concordia, upon the shores of
which, we can imagine, in years not far hence, the
continuous line of semi-palaces and the crowded
mart; and resting upon its waters the gay pleasure-boat,
and the cumbrous one of commerce, together
with all the associations of a country long settled
and full of wealth. At present, however, a different
scene is presented; comparatively all is wild; the
residences that reflect in its clear waters are like
angels' visits, few and far between, while the fairy
island, that is set like a gem in its centre, still remains
in its primeval wilderness.

Along the shores of Concordia Lake is heard the
oft-repeated echo of the sharp rifle and the ringing
melody of the hound. In the luxuriant foliage of
“the island” the beautiful deer graze plentifully and
almost undisturbed. The wild turkey “clucks” to

daylight almost as securely as its representative in
the farm-yard. The hunter, starting his game on
the mainland, expects that it will plunge into the
lake to avoid the ruthless hound: and often, indeed,
is the angler startled from his quiet by the deep-mouthed
bay of the hard-pressing pack while in
the still dark water, where he expected to deceive
the trout, and to which he stole so stealthily, there
will plunge the swelled-neck buck, bearing his
proud antlers aloft, and, breasting the waves nobly,
labouring for life. The light canoe or the rude skiff is
pressed into service, by some “volunteer of the
hunt,” and pushed across to “the island.” The
buck, thus pressed on all sides, and perhaps met
with a salute as he touches the shore from a murderous
fowling-piece, plunges again into the lake.
Every thing seems full of animation: you hear the
shout of the hunters encouraging the dogs; amidst
the music, trumpet-tongued, the breezes seem to
spring up and shake the pendant foliage from sympathy.
At break-neck pace, the well-trained horse,
with distended eyes, leaps over the ravine and fallen
tree, the happiest being in the chase, then checks
his swift speed at command, and as steady as a rock
awaits the shot from off his back; then again bounds
forward to mark the work of death. The poor buck,
pressed on all sides, and at every movement of his
muscles parting, through his wounds, with his life's
blood, turns upon his enemies, rears, plunges and
strikes with his fore-feet; but he is dragged down
and slain, his hair turned forward as roughly as the
quills of the porcupine, his eye mysteriously green
from rage, and unflinching in its defiance to the last.
The excitement passes away. The horn rings merrily
as a token of triumph, and silence again reigns.
The angler resumes his sport, and the flocks of
white crane settle down in the shallows. The waves,
caused by the last throes of the dying deer, spend
themselves in light shore-reaching circles until they
are lost in the mirrored surface, and the last token
of the presence of the most beautiful inhabitant of
the forest is obliterated as if it had not been.

The angling of Lake Concordia is one of its distinctive
features: if you will go to the favourite places,
you can, at any time, overload yourself with fish.
In the centre of the lake is its outlet; the Cocodra, a
narrow and deep stream, bears off its waters towards
the great Mississippi; a few miles run, it widens into
“Turtle Lake,” with bolder, and therefore, seemingly
wilder scenery than is often to be met with in the
alluvial. Turtle is a beautiful name; it suggests
pleasant pictures. Upon the shores of Turtle Lake
is heard the cooing of many doves; but it is Turtle
Lake from its abundance of “green, amphibious soft-shells”
that cover the fallen timber when the sun
shines hot, and drop into the water at your near approach

In the immediate influence of the Cocodra, you
can catch an abundance of trout or perch without
much skill or trouble; but as you approach the extreme
ends or heads of the lake, more art and patience
are required. It has been convenient for us to throw
the line just where least reward might be expected,
yet we have always been paid for our labour, and
served our purpose well. We are great anglers,
though we seldom catch fish. There is a spirit in
the still waters or running brook that laves the soul,
but we cannot communicate with it, unless it comes
to us along the rod and line; herein, if naught else,
would be our reward.

The winds, and the sky, and the tide, and the bait,
and the tackle, affect catching fish; but they affect
not thought. We sit down under the shade of the
favourite tree, or the shelving bank, and cast our
snare, and philosophize. We have often let the
naked hook play the scarecrow among the game,
while we have watched the mischievous blackbird
shoot along the margin of the water, dabbling for
minnows. There were a pair of eagles when we first
knew Lake Concordia, that in the morning light rose
up over the lowlands, as if they would peep down
into the east, and surprise the sun at its getting up.
There were no towering Himmalahs to rest their wings
midway, and when they had gilded their pinions with
the coming glory, thus hailing the birth of another
day, then they would shoot down to earth as if with
glad tidings, and soar joyously over their wild home,
fanning the still air into zephyrs, and sending the
fearful waterfowl in confused groups from their presence.
A tall cypress that peered over its fellows,
held among its dead limbs at the top, a black confused
mass that was known as “the eagle's nest;” it
was entrenched by matted foliage that revels in the
southern swamps, hiding away the alligator and other
reptiles: it was beyond the reach of the rifle; the

tallest and safest eyry for miles about. A hurricane
may have prostrated it, or the thunderbolt shattered
it—the eagles and their nest have disappeared.

A rough Virginia fence, over which the Cherokee
rose had entwined itself, as if in mercy to its jagged
appearance, made a good shade and a deep shadow
at some hours of the day, and from its prodigal wealth
in little buds, enlivened dull fishing. A little wren
we remember in particular, who had built its nest in
the hollow of the unsightly skull of an ox, suspended
on an upright post of the fence. It was a little fellow,
and busy beyond description; a perfect hen
hussy; there was always a stray horsehair, or bit of
moss in the wrong place, or too much down protruded
from the eyeless sockets. We have watched the
bird as we sat lazily waiting our fortune, and thought
nature would thus pleasantly teach us a lesson of industry,
and also one of gratitude. We have seen its little
throat palpitate and swell with song until it seemed
almost to despair of wringing out its music. It would
throw its head upon its downy breast, and then raise
it with each ascending note until it fairly screamed
on its tiptoes, then tripping into its nest, a new
thought would suggest itself, and again the air would
be laden with sweet sounds, uttered, but never written,
inspired by Him who created the harmony which
met the ear when “the stars sang together for joy.”
A tap from our rod, but gently though, as if from a
beauty's fan, and we turn to our occupation—struggling
upon our line is a black perch; and now that
we remember it, the float was out of sight when that
bit of sweet sounds done up in feathers commenced

pouring out its little heart to the spring and the sunshine.

Our early friend Elliott is a devoted angler; he
has an interminable quantity of trappings; and when
we first looked into his collection of rods, reels, hooks
and swivels, we told him we feared they were like
the rules of logic, more for show than use. He replied,
we might make the same remark of the marriage
ceremony, and think so too, if we put no value
upon legitimacy. We saw there was something
deeper than our philosophy in his answer, and have
believed in costly tackling ever since. We found
Elliott once fishing at a spot that commanded a fine
view of the lake; just beyond him, there ran out into
the water a sharp point graced with live oak trees
covered with moss; behind the deep foliage, the sun
was sinking, throwing dark shadows, while a stray
pencil of light would here and there glance through
the trees and kiss the water with almost blinding
brilliancy. His thoughts were dissipated, for he was
speculating upon the landscape, then listlessly looking
at his success of the evening as an angler. He
held up his “string” to our gaze; upon it was a
beautiful fish burnished with silver; he was attractive
indeed, to look at, but one acquainted with its merits
knew too well of the infinite bones that spread under
his gay exterior as confusedly as the stems of a brier-patch.
This fish was kept merely for show. The
next, and only one, was a juvenile perch; the poor
innocent had scarcely got clear of the spawn, and become
able to flourish in water fairly over its head,
when his want of experience had placed him at the

tender mercies of the hook and line. We pitied him
as he occasionally whipped his tail about, and then
worked his jaws upon the string that held him fast as
if it were a cud of bitterness. Such had been Elliott's
fortune. With slowly decreasing interest had
he watched his float as it sat daintily on the water,
and wished it to disappear.

“I love to see it tremble,” said Elliott, pointing to
it, speaking in a softened voice, “tremble as if it had a
pulse ere it darts so swiftly from the sight. What
expectations it gives rise to! It moves a little; some
gigantic fish has just brushed against the bait and
is now preparing to gulp it down. Again it trembles”—Elliott
struck, and drew into the air a “little
one,” playing its fins like a humming bird, and as
transparent as if it were made of amber. How astonished
and disappointed were the beating hearts
at both ends of the line. Elliott took the incipient
off carefully, and let it roll down towards the water
through a little dry earth. How the prismatic
scales grow dim with the contact, but for its moving
about, it might be taken for a chip. A dash in the
water—it's off—cleaned of dust, its yellow sides turn
downwards, and the little black line of its back
passes away like thought.

A juvenile toad that was playing “leap-frog” for
the sake of exercising his developing body, chanced,
as his bad luck would have it, to pass our way. A
little exertion secured the creature, and with as much
delicacy as a groomsman would place a ring upon
the finger of his beloved bride, Elliott secured the
toad on his hook, and committed it to the lake.

The little unfortunate toad struck out for dear life,
and swam boyfully; but his time had come; the very
ripple his little arms made in the water had caught
the never-closed eye of a lazy trout. The fish came
to the surface, and eyed the bait as a gourmand will
the dishes of an arranging dessert, rolled over its
spotted sides sportively, and disappeared. An instant
elapsed, when the trout appeared coming up
vertically, its fine head glistened in the sun a moment,
then, as quick as thought, again it disappeared;
it then rose, floated nearer the bait, “mouthing at
it” most provokingly. We were all excitement;
Elliott, on the contrary, performed his office as
silently and immovedly as a statue. In fact his rod
lay carelessly across his knee as if he never expected
to use it; but his eye the while was upon his game;
he knew its humours perfectly, and was contentedly
indulging its capriciousness. Presently the trout
turned and swam towards the centre of the lake—
we thought it lost. Elliott raised his delicate rod,
and, for the first time, moved it slowly, skimming
his bait along the surface of the water in little leaps—
a ripple—a rushing noise—a tail quivering in the air,
and our poor frog was in the trout's maw. The fish
had turned from its course to gather one more
dainty mouthful ere it buried itself in the deep water.
The capture was gracefully made, and the fish was
game to the last. The noble fellow pressed back
his gills, distended his mouth, until you could
put in it your hand to disengage the hook, then, laid
upon some wet moss, with a few convulsive struggles,
he died—a trophy of the angler's skill.

Among the fastnesses that border on Concordia
Lake still linger some few renegade Indians, who
make a precarious living in the barter of game;
disappearing sometimes for months, then presenting
themselves with illy-prepared peltries, a dead deer
or turkey—the sale of which procures their few necessaries—and
again they will wander off, as wild
and heedless as the passing winds. These “red
children” complete the picturesque. Gypsy-like, they
choose the happiest locations for their “smokes,”
the men with the ingenuity of cats finding a soft and
fitting place for comfortable sleep, while the women
always sit by watching. An old oak, at whose foot
centuries since the earth-dissolving waters of the
Mississippi boiled, robbing the roots of its soil, until
they protruded like the writhing forms of a hundred
serpents, seeking nourishment deeper in the
bosom of the earth for their attempted exhumation.
An old oak, whose largest limbs are dead, yet, like
proud age, affects youth by false appointments; of
wigs, of manilla-scented muscadines; of rouge, of
the deep-red foliage of a hundred flowering vines;
of props, of the quick growing cotton-wood that
shoots aloft amid its vines; of stays, the convolving
grape, binding together its wind-whistled ribs.
Under this old oak we have “frequent met” a family
of the once powerful Choctaws. From where they
dozed away the noontide heats, but for a narrow
belt of intervening forest, could be seen the Natchez
bluffs, and on them, breaking darkly against the sky,
the ruins of old Fort Rosalie.

Four generations since, and the ancestors of this

Indian family, “seven hundred strong,” fell upon
the Natchez, while exulting over the massacre of
the French at the fort of Rosalie, stormed their
villages, liberated their prisoners, and, without loss,
exulted in the possession of three-score scalps. Ten
days after, the French from New Orleans completed
the victory, and thus destroyed the most singular
nation of all our aborigines; scattering them among
the Chicasas and Muscogees; and seizing their great
seer and two hundred prisoners as slaves. The flying
remnant of the tribe crossed the Mississippi, swept
by the old oak we have described in their flight,
coursed along the margin of Concordia Lake, reflected
fleetingly in the Cocodra and Turtle lakes,
and entrenched themselves for deathly siege, in ancient
mounds, a day's travel from their native homes,
over which the white man now incuriously wanders,
ignorant alike of their associations or purposes, and
known but to the few who cherish the traditions
and antiquities of our western home.

Such are a few of the incidents and associations
of Concordia Lake.