13^ PLOEIDA. 67 



up to their backs in water feeding off the cabbage at 

 the bottom, and thrusting their heads clear under 

 to get it, and we began to reahze that in the end we 

 might come to beheye anything of the wonders of 

 this wonderful land. On the last day of our stay in 

 Jacksonville, we had given a little lunch on board, 

 and to show what dinners can be got up there, and 

 how easily, I will reproduce the bill of fare. Every- 

 thing had been prepared on board, and although 

 our cabin could only seat twelve, we placed before 

 the guests cold turkey, beef and tongue, chicken 

 salad, prepared by the Doctor in most artistic style, 

 stewed oysters, roast potatoes, radishes, and for des- 

 sert banana salad — an invention of the better part of 

 the party, — Dummit Grove oranges, sapidillas, and 

 grapefruit, -with pieces montees of palmetto leaves 

 and sour oranges en branches. There was a little 

 pate de foies gras also, but that need not be counted, 

 because it came from the North. 



We found that when we had reached Pilatka the 

 stories, instead of diminishing, developed yet more 

 astonishing proportions. The mosquitoes, that the 

 hogs fed on at Jacksonville, put out the head light of 

 the locomotive at Pilatka, extinguished abonfire, and 

 made nothing of the negroes "light wood torches;" 

 the tarpon of Jacksonville could only jump six feet 

 high when hooked, while the tarpon of Pilatka, with- 

 out being hooked, bounded clear over the rail of the 

 steamboat Seth Low, which was ten feet from the 

 water, struck the captain in the stomach, and knock- 

 ed him down. We had not been at Pilatka two days, 



