1GO YACITTIXG OX THE ST. JOTIXS. 



pines, so abundant and so monotonous. Beneath these 

 trees is a varied and interesting growth of forms very 

 strange in contrast with the small thin undergrowth of 

 the North. The huge leaves of the cabbage palmetto, 

 five or six feet in diameter, are very handsome, with their 

 crimped fan-like radiating form, and the saw-palmetto 

 shrub is very similar. A wealth of small growth and 

 vines is mingled in the green tangle, while parasitic 

 plants, mistletoe, and air-plant, form mid-air clusters 

 foreign to any our hardwood hills present. 



About noon we reached Lake George and found it 

 very rough, but leaving the channel we followed an 

 unusual route through the islands and ventured out, our 

 yacht rolling a good deal, but we soon came under the 

 west shore and found shelter. About midway on the 

 shore is one of the wonderful springs that are so beauti 

 ful. Leaving the yacht, we poled in a flat skiff over a 

 shallow bar, and up the stream that ilows from the 

 spring. The entrance was among lilies called bonnets 

 by the natives, and they were swarming with duck and 

 rail ; while in the water, that was as clear as air, were 

 shoals of fish, bass, mullet, long, savage-looking gar-iish 

 and huge cat-fish. They would not bite, but were easily 

 punched with an oar, and with a spear numbers could 

 have been obtained. Here and there lay alligators, eye 

 ing us wickedly, and they were far more bold than in 

 the main river. On the low points resembling the 

 spirituelle as completely as the alligators represent the 

 infernal were stately, snowy herons, the most beautiful 

 feature of all this sunny land. Following the dark 

 thread of water through a profusion of semi-aquatic 

 growth, we entered the forest until it overreached the 

 narrow water, and was, in all its beauty, repeated in the 



