222 WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 



well along in years, who demanded, in a tone 

 of almost comical astonishment, where in the 

 world I had come from. I told him from 

 Tallahassee, and he seemed so taken aback 

 that I began to think I must look uncom- 

 monly like an invalid, a " Northern consump- 

 tive," perhaps. Otherwise, why should a 

 walk of six miles, or something less, be 

 treated as such a marvel? However, the 

 negro and I were soon on the friendliest of 

 terms, talking of the old times, the war, the 

 prospects of the colored people (the younger 

 ones were fast going to the bad, he thought), 

 while I stood looking out over the lake, a 

 pretty sheet of water, surrounded mostly by 

 cypress woods, but disfigured for the present 

 by the doings of lumbermen. What inter- 

 ested me most (such is the fate of the de- 

 votee) was a single barn swallow, the first 

 and only one that I saw on my Southern 

 trip. 



On my way back to the city, after much 

 fatherly advice about the road on the part 

 of the negro, who seemed to feel that I ran 

 the greatest risk of getting lost, I made 

 two more additions to my Florida catalogue 

 the wood duck and the yellow-billed 



