ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 155 
cabins and tall, solitary trees. On the 
nearer slope, perhaps a sixteenth of a mile 
away, a negro was ploughing, with a single 
ox harnessed in some primitive manner, 
— with pieces of wood, for the most part, as 
well as I could make out through an opera- 
glass. The soil offered the least possible 
hindrance, and both he and the ox seemed 
to be having a literal ‘ walk-over.” Beyond 
him — a full half-mile away, perhaps — an- 
other man was ploughing with a mule ; and 
in another direction a third was doing like- 
wise, with a woman following in his wake. 
A colored boy of seventeen — I guessed his 
age at twenty-three — came up the road in a 
cart, and I stopped him to inquire about the 
crops and other matters. The land in front 
of me was planted with cotton, he said ; and 
the men ploughing in the distance were get- 
ting ready to plant the same. They hired 
the land and the cabins of Captain H., pay- 
ing him so much cotton (not so much an 
acre, but so much a mule, if I understood 
him rightly) by way of rent. We talked a 
long time about one thing and another. He 
had been south as far as the Indian River 
country, but was glad to be back again in 
