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SPRING GARDEN. 



Having heard many wonderful accounts of a certain spring near the 

 sources of the St John's River in East Florida, I resolved to visit it, in 

 order to iudo-e for myself. On the 6th of January 1832, I left the plan- 

 tation of my friend John Bulow, accompanied by an amiable and ac- 

 complished Scotch gentleman, an engineer employed by the planters of 

 those districts in erecting their sugar-house estabhshments. We were 

 mounted on horses of the Indian breed, remarkable for their activity and 

 strength, and were provided with guns and some provisions. The wea- 

 ther was pleasant, but not so our way, for no sooner had we left the 

 " King's Road," which had been cut by the Spanish government for a 

 o-oodly distance, than we entered a thicket of scrubby oaks, succeeded 

 by a still denser mass of low palmettoes, which extended about three miles, 

 and among the roots of which our nags had great difficulty in making 

 o-ood their footing. After this we entered the Pine Barrens, so exten- 

 sively distributed in this portion of the Floridas. The sand seemed to be 

 all sand and nothing but sand, and the palmettoes at times so covered the 

 narrow Indian trail which we followed, that it required all the instinct or 

 sagacity of ourselves and our horses to keep it. It seemed to us as if we 

 were approaching the end of the world. The country was perfectly flat, 

 and, so far as we could survey it, presented the same wild and scraggy 

 aspect. My companion, who had travelled there before, assured me that, 

 at particular seasons of the year, he had crossed the barrens when they 

 were covered with water fully knee-deep, when, according to his expres- 

 sion, they " looked most awful ;" and I readily believed him, as we now 

 and then passed through muddy pools, which reached the saddle-girths of 

 our horses. Here and there large tracts covered with tall grasses, and 

 resembling the prairies of the western wilds, opened to our view. Where- 

 ever the country happened to be sunk a little beneath the general level, 

 it was covered with cypress trees, whose spreading arms were hung with 

 a profusion of Spanish moss. The soil in such cases consisted of black 

 mud, and was densely covered with bushes, chiefly of the Magnolia 

 family. 



We crossed in succession the heads of three branches of Haw Creek, 

 of which the waters spread from a quarter to half a mile in breadth, and 



