192 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



work of Audubon has left an enduring picture in literature 

 and art. He painted the past, and left it to the historian. 



He went to Florida. 



There were no great hotels in Florida then; railroads 

 did not interline the State, and the river-boats were few. 

 In all streams and pools appeared the alligators' heads. 

 Audubon wandered over the pine-barrens and under the 

 coverts of lacing vines, among the live-oaks, where flour- 

 ished the begonias and jessamines, and where almost night 

 and day the rapturous mocking-birds sang. 



The wood-cutters or the " live-oakers " had begun to 

 do their work of opening the hard forests to the cold of 

 the north, which has come at last to make roads of freez- 

 ing currents of air to blight the once teeming orange 

 trees. 



The lands in many places were so alike as to lead a 

 traveler to go round in a circle. The moon turned the 

 Stygian pools, with their webs of gray moss, into mirror-like 

 enchantments. Here the herons stood like statues, and the 

 irumpet-creepers hung their bells from the mosses. 



The turtle islands, or Tortugas, in the clear purple seas, 

 drew thither his boat. The sea seemed filled with jewels 

 and the air with wings. The sunsets and sunrises were en- 

 circling splendors. Here he saw the turtles laying their 

 eggs in the sand. 



Here he met the " turtlers," men of humble birth, who 



