CHAP. XXVI.] VIEW FROM LIGHTHOUSE. 103 



where, from the top of the tower, we had a splendid 

 view of the city to the north, and to the south the 

 noble Bay of Mobile, fourteen miles across. The 

 keeper of the lighthouse looked sickly, which is not 

 surprising, as he is living in a swamp in this region 

 of malaria. It was his first year of residence, and the 

 second year is said to be most trying to the consti 

 tution. The women, however, of his family, seemed 

 healthy. We then went to the sea-side, two miles to 

 the eastward, and found the waters of the bay smooth 

 and unrippled, like an extensive lake, the woods 

 coming down everywhere to its edge, and the live oaks 

 and long-leaved pines, with the buck-eye and several 

 other trees just beginning to put forth their young 

 leaves. As the most northern countries I had 

 visited in Europe Norway and Sweden were 

 characterised by fir trees mingled with birch, I was 

 surprised to find the most southern spot I had yet 

 seen, a plain only a few feet above the level of 

 the sea, almost equally characterised by a predomi 

 nance of pines. On the ground I observed a species 

 of cactus, about one foot high, and the marshy spots 

 were covered with the candleberry (Myrica caro- 

 linensis), resembling the species so common in the 

 North, in the scent of its aromatic leaves, but thrice 

 as high as I had seen it before. The most common 

 plant in flower was the English chickweed ( Cerastium 

 vulgare), a truly cosmopolite species. 



A prodigious quantity of drift timber, of all sizes, 

 and in every stage of decomposition, lay stranded far 

 and wide along the shore. Many of the trunks had 

 been floated a thousand miles and more down the 



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