146 VIRGINIA 



bright afternoon sky. By the time Philadel- 

 phia was reached, or by the time we were 

 done with running in and out of its several 

 stations, the night had commenced falling, 

 and I saw nothing more of the world, with 

 all that famous valley of the Shenandoah, 

 till I left my berth at Roanoke. There the 

 orchards — apple-trees and peach-trees to- 

 gether — were in full bloom, and on the 

 slopes of the hills, as we pushed in among 

 them, rounding curve after curve, shone gor- 

 geous red patches of the Judas-tree, with 

 sprinklings of columbines, violets, marsh- 

 marigolds, and dandelions, and sj^lashes of 

 deep orange-yellow, — clusters of some flower 

 then unknown to me, but pretty certainly 

 the Indian puccoon ; not the daintiest of 

 blossoms, perhaps, but among the most effec- 

 tive under such fugitive, arm's-length condi- 

 tions. A plaguing kind of pleasure it is to 

 ride past such things at a speed which makes 

 a good look at them impossible, as once, for 

 the better part of a long forenoon, in the 

 flatwoods of Florida and southern Georgia, I 

 rode through swampy places bright with 

 splendid pitcher-plants, of a species I had 

 never seen and knew nothing about ; strain- 



