THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 105 
dropped straight from the treetops to the 
ground. 
In the very heart of this dense, dark for- 
est (a forest primeval, I should have said, 
but I was assured that the ground had been 
under cultivation so recently that, to a prac- 
ticed eye, the cotton-rows were still visible) 
stood a grove of wild orange-trees, the hand- 
some fruit glowing like lamps amid the deep 
green foliage. There was little other bright- 
ness. Here and there in the undergrowth 
were yellow jessamine vines, but already 
— March 11—they were past flowering. 
Almost or quite the only blossom just now 
in sight was the faithful round-leaved hous- 
tonia, growing in small flat patches in the 
sand on the edge of the road, with budding 
partridge-berry —a Yankee in Florida — 
to keep it company. Warblers and titmice 
twittered in the leafy treetops, and butter- 
flies of several kinds, notably one gorgeous 
ereature in yellow and black, like a larger 
and more resplendent Turnus, went flutter- 
ing through the underwoods. I could have 
believed myself in the heart of a limitless 
forest; but Florida hammocks, so far as I 
have seen, are seldom of great extent, and 
