WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 215 
of the city, I had accosted a gentleman in a 
dooryard in front of a long, low, vine-cov- 
ered, romantic-looking house. He was evi- 
dently at home, and not so busy as to make 
an interruption probably intrusive. I in- 
quired the name of a tree, I believe. At all 
events, I engaged him in conversation, and. 
found him most agreeable —an Ohio gentle- 
man, a man of science, who had been in the 
South long enough to have acquired large 
measures of Southern insouciance (there 
are times when a French word has a politer 
sound than any English equivalent), which 
takes life as made for something better than 
worry and pleasanter than hard work. He 
had seen ivory-bills, he said, and thought I 
might be equally fortunate if I would visit a 
certain swamp, about which he would tell 
me, or, better still, if I would go out to Lake 
Bradford. 
First, because it was nearer, I went to the 
swamp, taking an early breakfast and set- 
ting forth in a fog that was almost a mist, to 
make as much of the distance as possible be- 
fore the sun came out. My course lay west- 
ward, some four miles, along the railway 
track, which, thanks to somebody, is provided 
