stant, sure depth of water. Innumerable filaments of stealthy bayous running between the bay and the two great streams, the Mississippi and the LaFourche, furnished an incomparable system of secret intercommunication and concealment. The shore of the bay is itself but a concourse of islands, huddling all around, as if they too, like the vessels of the first discoverers of Barataria, had been driven in there by a storm and had never cared to sail out again. On the islands are those inexplicable mammoth heaps of shell, covered by groves of oaks, chênières they were called, which were selected by the aboriginal inhabitants as sites for their temples. A prominent group of these heaps, on one of the larger islands, was the notorious Great Temple, the privateers' chief place of deposit and trade. It is a land of promise for light o' law gentry, and when the British fleet finally cleaned the islands of the Gulf of them, and broke up their nests, they trimmed their sails for Barataria. They soon found that, disguised as necessity, a brilliant stroke of fortune had been dealt them. They were in the easiest and safest reach of the great mart of the Mississippi Valley, where thousands of their kith and kin, driven also out of the islands by the English, walked the streets of the city, looking for a livelihood.
From his first subordinate relation as agent and banker, Jean Lafitte increased his usefulness to the Baratarians, until, through success in managing their affairs, he obtained a complete control over them, and finally ruled them with the authority of a chief. This was when his genius had compassed their complete organization, had united all their different and often rival efforts and interests into one company, or, as we would say to-day, formed one vast "concern" of all the pi-
