152 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 



more beautiful still, with a profusion of 

 fragrant white honeysuckle. On the road- 

 side, between the wheel-track and the gulch, 

 grew brilliant Mexican poppies, with Ve- 

 nus's looking-glass, yellow oxalis, and beds 

 of blackberry vines. The woods of which 

 my informant had spoken lay a little beyond 

 the railway, on the right hand of the road, 

 just as it began another ascent. I entered 

 them at once, and after a semicircular turn 

 through the pleasant paths, amid live-oaks, 

 water-oaks, red oaks, chestnut oaks, mag- 

 nolias, beeches, hickories, hornbeams, sweet 

 gums, sweet bays, and long-leaved and 

 short-leaved pines, came out into the road 

 again a quarter of a mile farther up 

 the hill. They were the fairest of woods 

 to stroll in, it seemed to me, with paths 

 enough, and not too many, and good 

 enough, but not too good ; that is to say, 

 they were footpaths, not roads, though 

 afterwards, on a Sunday afternoon, I met 

 two young fellows riding through them on 

 bicycles. The wood was delightful, also, 

 after my two months in eastern Florida, for 

 lying on a slope, and for having an under- 

 growth of loose shrubbery instead of a 



