THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 105 



dropped straight from the treetops to the 

 ground. 



In the very heart of this dense, dark for- 

 est (a forest primeval, I should have said, 

 but I was assured that the ground had been 

 under cultivation so recently that, to a prac- 

 ticed eye, the cotton-rows were still visible) 

 stood a grove of wild orange-trees, the hand- 

 some fruit glowing like lamps amid the deep 

 green foliage. There was little other bright- 

 ness. Here and there in the undergrowth 

 were yellow jessamine vines, but already 

 March 11 they were past flowering. 

 Almost or quite the only blossom just now 

 in sight was the faithful round-leaved hous- 

 tonia, growing in small flat patches in the 

 sand on the edge of the road, with budding 

 partridge-berry a Yankee in Florida 

 to keep it company. Warblers and titmice 

 twittered in the leafy treetops, and butter- 

 flies of several kinds, notably one gorgeous 

 creature in yellow and black, like a larger 

 and more resplendent Turnus, went flutter- 

 ing through the underwoods. I could have 

 believed myself in the heart of a limitless 

 forest ; but Florida hammocks, so far as I 

 have seen, are seldom of great extent, and 



