ALONG THE HILLSBOEOUGH. 85 



table luxuries, and land agents are quite 

 right in laying all stress upon them as in- 

 ducements to possible settlers. If the author 

 of the Apocalypse had been raised in Florida, 

 we should never have had the streets of the 

 New Jerusalem paved with gold. His idea 

 of heaven would have been different from 

 that ; more personal and home-felt, we may 

 be certain. 



The river road, then, as I have said, and 

 am glad to say again, was shell-paved. And 

 well it might be ; for the hammock, along 

 the edge of which it meandered, seemed, in 

 some places at least, to be little more than a 

 pile of oyster-shells, on which soil had some- 

 how been deposited, and over which a forest 

 was growing. Florida Indians have left an 

 evil memory. I heard a philanthropic visitor 

 lamenting that she had talked with many of 

 the people about them, and had yet to hear 

 a single word said in their favor. Somebody 

 might have been good enough to say that, 

 with all their faults, they had given to 

 eastern Florida a few hills, such as they are, 

 and at present are supplying it, indirectly, 

 with comfortable highways. How they must 

 have feasted, to leave such heaps of shells 



