CHAPTER XVII. 



Third Florida Episode: Spring Garden. 



\A VING heard many wonderful accounts of a 

 certain spring near the sources of the St. John's 

 River, in East Florida, I resolved to visit it, in 

 order to judge for myself. On the 6th of January, 1832, 

 I left the plantation of my friend John Bulow, accompa- 

 nied by an amiable and accomplished Scotch gentleman, 

 an engineer employed by the planters of those districts 

 in erecting their sugar-house establishments. We were 

 mounted on horses of the Indian breed, remarkable for 

 their activity and strength, and were provided with guns 

 and some provision. The weather was pleasant, but not 

 so our way, for no sooner had we left the ' King's Road,' 

 which had been cut by the Spanish government for a 

 goodly distance, than we entered a thicket of scrubby 

 oaks, succeeded by a still denser mass of low palmettoes, 

 which extended about three miles, and among the roots 

 of which our nags had great difficulty in making good 

 their footing. 



" After this we entered the pine barrens, so extensive- 

 .y distributed in this portion of Florida. The sand seemed 

 to be all sand, and nothing but sand, and the palmettoes 

 at times so covered the narrow Indian trail which we fol- 

 lowed, that it required all the instinct or sagacity of our- 

 sel* es and our horses to keep it. It seemed to us as if 

 we were approaching the end of the world, The coun- 

 try was perfectly flat, and, so far as we could survey it, 

 presented the same wild and scraggy aspect. My com- 

 panion, who had travelled there before, assured me that 



