154 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 
tioned that I had lately been in southern 
Florida, and found this region a strong 
contrast. ‘ Yes,” he returned; and, point- 
ing to the grass, he remarked upon the 
richness of the soil. ‘This yere land would 
fertilize that,” he said, speaking of southern 
Florida. ‘I should n’t wonder,” said I. I 
meant to be understood as concurring in his 
opinion, but such a qualified, Yankeefied 
assent seemed to him no assentatall. ‘Oh, 
it will, it will!” he responded, as if the 
point were one about which I must on no 
account be left unconvinced. He told me 
that the fine house at which I had looked, a 
little distance back, through a long vista of 
trees, was the residence of Captain H., who 
owned all the land along the road for a 
good distance. I inquired how far the road 
was pretty, like this. “ For forty miles,” he 
said. That was farther than I was ready to 
walk, and coming soon to the top of the hill, 
or, more exactly, of the plateau, I stopped 
in the shade of a china-tree, and looked at 
the pleasing prospect. Behind me was a 
plantation of young pear-trees, and before 
me, among the hills northward, lay broad, 
cultivated slopes, dotted here and there with 
