2922 WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 
well along in years, who demanded, in a tone 
of almost comical astonishment, where in the 
world I had come from. I told him from 
Tallahassee, and he seemed so taken aback 
that I began to think I must look uncom- 
monly like an invalid, a “ Northern consump- 
tive,’ perhaps. Otherwise, why should a 
walk of six miles, or something less, be 
treated as such a marvel? However, the 
negro and I were soon on the friendliest of 
terms, talking of the old times, the war, the 
prospects of the colored people (the younger 
ones were fast going to the bad, he thought), 
while I stood looking out over the lake, a 
pretty sheet of water, surrounded mostly by 
cypress woods, but disfigured for the present 
by the doings of lumbermen. What inter- 
ested me most (such is the fate of the de- 
votee) was a single barn swallow, the first 
and only one that I saw on my Southern 
trip. 
On my way back to the city, after much 
fatherly advice about the road on the part 
of the negro, who seemed to feel that I ran 
the greatest risk of getting lost, | made 
two more additions to my Florida catalogue 
—the wood duck and the yellow-billed 
