BIRD S-EYE GLAKCE AT FLORIDA. 19 



being had a powder-horn suspended from his brawny 

 neck, and his matted black hair hung down to his shoul 

 ders, while his unkempt beard reached nearly to his 

 waist. A pair of sinister eyes looked out from under 

 the shaggy brows, which were shaded by a slouched hat. 

 He was evidently a hunter by profession. At one of 

 these stopping places we dropped a little dried-up man, 

 whose countenance indicated an uncertain age. He 

 might have been twenty or even fifty, for he was evi 

 dently one of the Rip Van Winkle type of men who can 

 lie down and sleep an age or two in the wilderness with 

 out trouble. From this sleep they will arise half awake, 

 and again plod through the world, no more or less 

 musty-looking or dried up than before. Such men, 

 even while in infancy, have scarcely enough flesh to 

 cover their bones. As they grow older this little ex 

 pands, until a certain age, when it hardens ; then old 

 Time may shake his glass over their heads without pro 

 ducing the slightest effect, or hack at them with his 

 rusty scythe in vain they look not an hour older. 

 Such was the bodily appearance of the man whom we 

 dropped at this place. He was clad in a very dirty 

 suit of homespun cotton cloth, while a satchel of the 

 same material hung at his side. His not very prepos 

 sessing face was shaded by an old palmetto hat, from 

 beneath which his long flaxen hair hung in tangled 

 skeins. His stockingless feet, thrust into a pair of 

 broad-soled shoes, proclaimed him a cracker of the lowest 

 class. 



The steamers move slowly against the current, so 

 that in twenty-four hours we had accomplished but one 

 hundred miles of our journey, and on the following 

 morning we were crossing Lake George. This is a very 



