208 WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 



the country, coincident with a change in the 

 nature of the soil, from white sand to red 

 clay ; a change indescribably exhilarating to 

 a New Englander who had been living, if only 

 for two months, in a country without hills. 

 How good it was to see the land rising, 

 though never so gently, as it stretched away 

 toward the horizon ! My spirits rose with 

 it. By and by we passed extensive hillside 

 plantations, on which little groups of ne- 

 groes, men and women, were at work. I 

 seemed to see the old South of which I had 

 read and dreamed, a South not in the least 

 like anything to be found in the wilds of 

 southern and eastern Florida ; a land of cot- 

 ton, and, better still, a land of Southern 

 people, instead of Northern tourists and set- 

 tlers. And when we stopped at a thrifty- 

 looking village, with neat, homelike houses, 

 open grounds, and lordly shade-trees, I 

 found myself saying under my breath, " Now, 

 then, we are getting back into God's coun- 

 try." 



As for Tallahassee itself, it was exactly 

 what I had hoped to find it : a typical South- 

 ern town ; not a camp in the woods, nor an 

 old city metamorphosed into a fashionable 



