156 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 
Tallahassee, where he was born. I asked 
him about the road, how far it went. ‘“ They 
tell me it goes smack to St. Augustine,” 
he replied; “I ain’t tried it.” It was an 
unlikely story, it seemed to me, but I was 
assured afterward that he was right; that 
the road actually runs across the country 
from Tallahassee to St. Augustine, a dis- 
tance of about two hundred miles. With 
company of my own choosing, and in cooler 
weather, I thought I should like to walk its 
whole length... My young man was in no 
haste. With the reins (made of rope, after 
a fashion much followed in Florida) lying 
on the forward axle of his cart, he seemed to 
have put himself entirely at my service. 
He had to the full that peculiar urbanity 
which I began after a while to look upon as 
characteristic of Tallahassee negroes, — a 
gentleness of speech, and a kindly, deferen- 
tial air, neither forward nor servile, such as 
1 But let no enthusiast set out to walk from one city to 
the other on the strength of what is here written. After 
this sketch was first printed —in The Atlantic Monthly 
—a gentleman who ought to know whereof he speaks sent 
me word that my informants were all of them wrong — 
that the road does not run toSt. Augustine. For myself, 
I assert nothing. As my colored boy said, “ I ain’t tried it.” 
