THE GREAT DISMAL: A Swamp Memoir ...
THE GREAT DISMAL: A Swamp Memoir by Bland Simpson (Henry Holt: $10.95; 185 pp., illustrated). Despite its dreary name, the Great Dismal Swamp that straddles the Virginia-North Carolina border inspired poems by Thomas Moore, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Powhatan ruled the Great Dismal when Jamestown was founded; George Washington surveyed it and tried to establish a rice plantation at its borders. Its tangled jungles and waterways made the Great Dismal a haven for escaped slaves, and Admiral Perry took water from the central Lake Drummond on his voyages to Japan because the high tannic acid content kept it fresh. Simpson’s warmly engaging blend of history, natural history and personal anecdotes suggests a folk song celebrating a curious bit of Americana.
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