156 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 



Tallahassee, where he was born. I asked 

 him about the road, how far it went. " They 

 tell me it goes smack to St. Augustine," 

 he replied ; " I ain't tried it." It was an 

 unlikely story, it seemed to me, but I was 

 assured afterward that he was right ; that 

 the road actually runs across the country 

 from Tallahassee to St. Augustine, a dis- 

 tance of about two hundred miles. With 

 company of my own choosing, and in cooler 

 weather, I thought I should like to walk its 

 whole length. 1 My young man was in no 

 haste. With the reins (made of rope, after 

 a fashion much followed in Florida) lying 

 on the forward axle of his cart, he seemed to 

 have put himself entirely at my service. 

 He had to the full that peculiar urbanity 

 which I began after a while to look upon as 

 characteristic of Tallahassee negroes, a 

 gentleness of speech, and a kindly, deferen- 

 tial air, neither forward nor servile, such as 



1 But let no enthusiast set out to walk from one city to 

 the other on the strength of what is here written. After 

 this sketch was first printed in The Atlantic Monthly 

 a gentleman who ought to know whereof he speaks sent 

 me word that my informants were all of them wrong 

 that the road does not run to St. Augustine. For myself, 

 I assert nothing. As my colored boy said, " I ain't tried it." 



