BESIDE THE MARSH. 



I AM sitting upon the upland bank of a 

 narrow winding creek. Before me is a sea 

 of grass, brown and green of many shades. 

 To the north the marsh is bounded by live- 

 oak woods, a line with numberless inden- 

 tations, beyond which runs the Matanzas 

 River, as I know by the passing and repass- 

 ing of sails behind the trees. Eastward are 

 sand-hills, dazzling white in the sun, with a 

 ragged green fringe along their tops. Then 

 comes a stretch of the open sea, and then, 

 more to the south, St. Anastasia Island, with 

 its tall black-and-white lighthouse and the 

 cluster of lower buildings at its base. Small 

 sailboats, and now and then a tiny steamer, 

 pass up and down the river to and from St. 

 Augustine. 



A delicious south wind is blowing (it is 

 the 15th of February), and I sit in the shade 

 of a cedar-tree and enjoy the air and the 

 scene. A contrast, this, to the frozen world 

 I was living in, less than a week ago. 



