"By 6 P.M. The Canal Was Completed, And The Wind Having Come Round To
The North, We Sailed Through
The channel and entered a fine lake about
half a mile wide, followed by the whole fleet with bugles and
Drums
sounding the advance, the troops vainly hoping that their work was over.
The steamers are about a mile behind, and I have ordered their paddles
to be dismounted to enable them to be towed through the high grass in
the narrow channel.
"March 14. - At 6 a.m. I started and surveyed the lake in a small rowing
boat, and found it entirely shut in and separated from another small
lake by a mass of dense rotten vegetation about eighty yards in width. I
called all hands, and cleared it in fifty-five minutes sufficiently to
allow the fleet to pass through. Upon an examination of the next lake, I
found, to my intense disappointment, that not only was it closed in, but
there was no outlet visible even from the mast-head. Not a drop of water
was to be seen ahead, and the entire country was a perfect chaos, where
the spirit of God apparently had not yet moved upon the waters. There
was neither earth nor clear water, nor any solid resting-place for a
human foot. Now and then a solitary bittern rose from the marsh, but,
beyond a few water-rails, there were no other birds. The grass was
swarming with snakes, and also with poisonous ants that attacked the
men, and greatly interfered with the work.
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