162 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 
pected; and then I remembered my field- 
glass. That, as I could not help being 
aware, was an object of continual attention. 
Every day I saw people, old and young, 
black and white, looking at it with undis- 
guised curiosity. Often they passed audible 
comments upon itamong themselves. ‘“ How 
far can you see through the spyglass?” a 
bolder spirit would now and then venture to 
ask ; and once, on the railway track out in 
the pine lands, a barefooted, happy-faced 
urchin made a guess that was really admira- 
ble for its ingenuity. ‘Looks like you’re 
goin’ over inspectin’ the wire,” he remarked. 
On rare occasions, as an act of special grace, 
I offered such an inquirer a peep through the 
magic lenses, — an experiment that never 
failed to elicit exclamations of wonder. 
Things were so near! And the observer 
looked comically incredulous, on putting 
down the glass, to find how suddenly the 
landscape had slipped away again. More 
than one colored man wanted to know its 
price, and expressed a fervent desire to 
possess one like it; and probably, if I had 
ever been assaulted and robbed in all my 
solitary wanderings through the flat-woods 
