FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 6i 



sense and the eye for dollars so often found in his 

 countrymen, he told the life story of a tree and 

 appraised its value as lumber in a breath. He knew 

 every bird and insect that flew before the horses, he 

 was primed with every old Indian legend of the 

 countryside, and kept up a running fire of comment, 

 question and description that made the miles go 

 like yards. Nor were matters historical outside his 

 interest, for he told me of the Mason and Dixon 

 line, which divided the sinsfina of " Dixie For 

 Ever " from the shouting of " The Star-spangled 

 Banner," and he reminded me that the State of 

 North Carolina, in which we were driving that 

 lovely April morning, was the first to be held by 

 Raleigh in the name of his Queen, and was likewise 

 the first to throw off the English yoke, both achieve- 

 ments, curiously enough, dated the 4th of July. 



But with Nature smiling and singing in the hey- 

 day of her spring, these mouldy memories of dead 

 centuries of rapine and rebellion were shorn of much 

 of their attraction. Every turn of the road brought 

 new beauties of land and water. We got down 

 from the cart to view the well-built dam that spans 

 the Horse Pasture River, and again to sit for a 

 moment on a tiny bridge with tons of water roaring 

 beneath our feet to the leafy chasm below. The 

 red bloom of the maple blushed against the white 

 pallor of dogwood, and the horses trotted merrily 

 through miles of untouched jungle, wherein serried 

 ranks of gum, chestnut, birch, sorrel, hickory, pine 

 and other trees stand knee-deep in a tangle of 

 rhododendron undergrowth, while laurel, azalea 

 and magnolia were just then putting on their 

 choicest apparel for the summer bridal of the birds. 



