Quagmires surrounded them, covered by a thin crust of verdure,
sometimes broken through by one man's weight, when the victim sank
hopelessly into the black and bottomless depths below. In other
directions there was a solid bottom, but inconveniently covered by
three or four feet of water, through which the troops waded
breast-deep, holding their muskets high in the air, unable to reload
them when once discharged, and liable to be picked off by rebel scouts,
who ingeniously posted themselves in the tops of palm-trees.
Through this delectable region Colonel Fougeaud and his followers
slowly advanced, drawing near the fatal shore where Captain Meyland's
detachment had just been defeated, and where their mangled remains
still polluted the beach. Passing this point of danger without attack,
they suddenly met a small party of rebels, each bearing on his back a
beautifully-woven hamper of snow-white rice: these loads they threw
down, and disappeared. Next appeared an armed body from the same
direction, who fired upon them once and swiftly retreated; and in a few
moments the soldiers came upon a large field of standing rice, beyond
which lay, like an amphitheatre, the rebel village. But between the
village and the field had been piled successive defences of logs and
branches, behind which simple redoubts the Maroons lay concealed.
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