WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 215 



of the city, I had accosted a gentleman in a 

 dooryard in front of a long, low, vine-cov- 

 ered, romantic-looking house. He was evi- 

 dently at home, and not so busy as to make 

 an interruption probably intrusive. I in- 

 quired the name of a tree, I believe. At all 

 events, I engaged him in conversation, and 

 found him most agreeable an Ohio gentle- 

 man, a man of science, who had been in the 

 South long enough to have acquired large 

 measures of Southern insouciance (there 

 are times when a French word has a politer 

 sound than any English equivalent), which 

 takes life as made for something better than 

 worry and pleasanter than hard work. He 

 had seen ivory-bills, he said, and thought I 

 might be equally fortunate if I would visit a 

 certain swamp, about which he would tell 

 me, or, better still, if I would go out to Lake 

 Bradford. 



First, because it was nearer, I went to the 

 swamp, taking an early breakfast and set- 

 ting forth in a fog that was almost a mist, to 

 make as much of the distance as possible be- 

 fore the sun came out. My course lay west- 

 ward, some four miles, along the railway 

 track, which, thanks to somebody, is provided 



