164 YACHTING ON THE ST. JOHNS. 



Half a mile from the lake, the stream ended in a 

 curve under a high bank, and here by hard rowing we 

 found the spring, and looked down into a white walled 

 chasm through water that seemed too ethereal to support 

 our skiff. It was a dizzy overlook down into this deep 

 pool, where long weeds writhed and swayed forty or fifty 

 feet below us in the swell of the current, and Avhere 

 shoals of huge fish would sweep out from under rocks 

 and be swept rapidly about like shadows. The water 

 rose with such force as to make a high boiling centre, 

 where skilful rowing could poise a boat, only to slide 

 away with a rapid balloon-like motion that w r as not at 

 all pleasant. Fine palmettoes had surrounded this won 

 derful pool with a fit and beautiful shade, but they were 

 just then a heap of smouldering ashes, having been cut 

 away for cotton ground that might better have been 

 taken from the unlimited forest beyond the small clear 

 ing. Vandal hands have rarely marred a more weird 

 scene, nor ignorance more surely damaged the value of a 

 rare possession ; but so it is in Florida ; all hands, from 

 the jewelled one that wrote its owner s name in a font at 

 St. Augustine, to the &quot;cracker s &quot; horny palm, are against 

 the ancient, the curious, and the beautiful ; and ere long 

 the cliffs will bear quack medicine names, and the old 

 walls will fall before want of taste, and give away to 

 pine fences, as lias the old and mysterious &quot; Treasury 

 wall&quot; at St. Augustine. (A disgraceful fact.) 



The tropical character of this noble river is chiefly 

 seen above Lake George. North of this lake the north 

 west winds, the cold storm winds of the country, pass 

 only overland from the frozen north, and in mid-winter 

 sometimes bring a very unpleasant chill, one that renders 

 orange culture precarious, blighting in some years the 



