A DAY IN THE WOODS 



I WAS well within the truth when I said, a week 

 ago, that there could not be many places in Flor- 

 ida where a walking man would find his wants 

 so generously provided for as at Ormond. Here 

 he may spend a half day in idling over a round 

 of a mile or two, — sea beach, river bank, and 

 woodland, — or he may foot it as industriously 

 as he pleases from morning till night ; and the 

 next day and the day after he will have plenty 

 of invitations to "fresh woods," though hardly 

 to "pastures new." Pastures, whether new or 

 old, he may look for elsewhere. 



But at Ormond a man may not only walk, 

 he may drive ; and this forenoon (March 19) a 

 pair of horses have taken me over such a road 

 as I do not expect soon to find the like of, either 

 in Florida or anywhere else ; a course of twelve 

 or fifteen miles, the whole of it (as soon as the 

 bridge over the Halifax was crossed) through 

 most beautiful forest. The road was wide enough 

 for the carriage and no more ; soft as a carpet, 

 so that the wheels made no noise, with big trunks 

 of pines, palmettoes, oaks, sweet-gums, magnolias, 



