72 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



hearted Northerners who resent such outrage on 

 their black brothers might try whether a week in 

 Barbados would damp their zeal. 



The one "lion" of Jacksonville is its ostrich 

 farm, and thither I took a car. Ostriches were the 

 clou of the show, but the chief amusement of the 

 afternoon was furnished by a huge baboon, which, 

 having broken loose, had to be recaptured by three 

 coloured attendants. By one of these it was eventu- 

 ally secured in a huge landing-net, evidently kept 

 for the purpose. There was also an exhibition of 

 driving an ostrich in harness, and riding it bare- 

 back. As a side show, coupled with some ludicrous 

 unrehearsed effects, in which the ostrich did most 

 of the driving, the performance was not without 

 merit, but none who witnessed the display would 

 be likely to acquire a high opinion of the ostrich 

 as an addition to the stable. It is even a little less 

 tractable than the zebra ; and, as the noble plumes 

 of its tail are prized alike by duchesses and dairy- 

 maids, the greatest of living fowl has its legitimate 

 use, and need not be pressed into the service of 

 man, who, in an age of mechanical traction, already 

 has more varieties of draught animals than he can 

 do with. 



Of course, Osky's too-alluring store of alligator 

 hide in a hundred useful and ornamental devices 

 detained me for half an hour, and released me 

 poorer than I had entered, yet many of the articles 

 were moderately priced, and something in alligator 

 skin is the only characteristic offering to take back 

 from Florida to friends at home. Perhaps the 

 most useful and least costly of my purchases that 

 day at Jacksonville was a broad-brimmed straw 



