CHAPTEK XXXIV. 



Fourth Florida Episode : Spring Garden. 



"Having heard many wonderful accounts of a certain spring 

 near the sources of the St. John's Kiver, in East Florida, I 

 resolved to visit it, in order to judge for myself. On the 

 6th of January, 1832, I left the plantation of my friend John 

 Bulow, accompanied by an amiable and accomplished Scotch 

 gentleman, an engineer employed by the planters of those 

 districts in erecting their sugar-house establishments. We 

 were mounted on horses of the Indian breed, remarkable for 

 their activity and strength, and were provided with guns and 

 some provision. The weather 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 goodly 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 good their footing. 



"After this we entered the pine barrens, so extensively dis- 

 tributed in this portion of Florida. 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 



