A SOJOURN IX FLORIDA. 39 



been attacked by a herd of them. A big bull ran one of the boys up a twenty-foot 

 "palmetto," took the limber trunk between his horns, wagged his head, and tried 

 to shake him out of the tree. His comrades, who heard his call for help, arrived 

 just in time to scare the animal off. This immense wilderness runs parallel with 

 the coast some sixty miles. The southern point is not far from Ocala, and a 

 horseman used to carry a mail bag there from Homosassa. Matters are different 

 now. There are more people in the vicinity and fewer ferocious cattle. 



On my way east I took an excursion up the St. Johns river, called at Harriet 

 Beecher's up stream, took a bath at Green Cove Spring, stopped off at Palatka, 

 where the Vermont Chas. F. Orvis' brother kept a winter resort, caught bass 

 opposite the house, ate oranges and bananas at Hart's orchard and plantation, 

 heard a six-foot diamond rattlesnake sing at Mrs. Blonson's. I called at Will 

 Fuller's beautiful place, located on a shell mound just above hers. His wealthy 

 father and uncle were brewers of Brooklyn, N. Y., and James was the Master 

 Mason of Commonwealth Lodge in 1857, when I was "made." He was one of 

 the first orange growers from his section. 



It was a delightful ride up river to Enterprise, Sanford and Lake Worth, 

 passing between the patches of lettuce, blue hyacinths, green arrow-heads project- 

 ing from the water spaces frequented by snakes and alligators, so dense that the 

 steamer could hardly push through them. At the Enterprise Hotel, on the lake 

 side opposite Sanford, we had a six-foot alligator tied to a stake by a stout six-foot 

 rope and set a big dog on it. The beast would hiss like a fighting cat, and when 

 he swung his tail at the dog to floor him the snap of the rope threw him with a 

 somersault. We did not like to have the scaly prisoner teased, but people would 

 like to see the amusement. 



I devoted the following summer to assisting President Fayette S. Giles and 

 Lafayette Westbrook, state representative, to set up the notable Blooming Grove 

 Park, securing Ezra Cornell, David Dudley Field, J. K. Morehead and others for 

 directors of this superlative preserve in Pike county, Pennsylvania. Ira Tripp, of 

 Scranton, gave us a pet black bear which future lady members fed with cake, ice 

 cream and watermelon. Big Joe grew to eight feet tall when he stood on his hind 

 feet at four years of age. One sunny day in midwinter, when the snow melted on 

 the "knobs" and he thought spring had come, he slipped his collar in this hillside 

 den, went up to the club house to see the place, and the temporary care-taker poked 

 his rifle through the blinds and killed him on the veranda. To mention the 

 historical incidents of its forty years' lifetime and name its notable club members, 

 would fill a readable volume of interest, such as the .versatile and veritable 

 Fred. E. Pond of "Turf, Field and Farm" furnished to the public twenty odd 

 years ago. There is much to his record as well as to mine. 



As the winter months passed on to spring, I turned to East Florida and crossed 

 over from Tocoi to St. Augustine on Judge Wilmot's improvised wooden railroad. 

 He was an enterprising man of the highest sort. He was able to give the moving 

 public comfortably quick transit just after the Civil War ended, when the South 

 was so miserable that no one had a dollar or credit after the long struggle. Its 

 entire rolling stock was essentially home-made. I penciled off a sketch of it at 

 the time. 



The tracks had no iron straps and the road no bed. There were neither 

 freight nor passenger cars per se, taxonomically speaking, but the carriages were a 

 droll combination of the flatcar and the old-fashioned Concord coach, each one 

 seating twice three persons, vis-a-vis, inside. Baggage and freight, if there happened 



