TRAVELS IN 
g.f 
There Teems, in Ihort, nothing wanted but the ap- 
pearance of a wigwam and a canoe to complete the 
icene. 
Keeping along the Weft or Indian fliore, I faw 
balking, on the fedgy banks, numbers of alligators 
fome of them of an enormous fize. 
The high forefts on this coaft now wore a grand 
and fublime appearance ; the earth rifing gradually 
from the river weftward, by eafy fwelling ridges, 
behind one another, lifting the diftant groves up in- 
to the Ikies. The trees are of the lofty kind, as the 
grand laurel magnolia, palma elata, liquidambar 
ftyraciPiua, fagus fylvatica, querci, juglans hiccory, 
fraxinus, and others. 
On my doubling a long point of land, the river 
appeared furprifingly widened, forming a large bay, 
of an oval form, and feveral miles in extent. On the 
Weft fide it was bordered round with low marlhes, 
and in vefted with a fwamp of Cyprefs, the trees 
fo lofty, as to preclude the fight of the high -land 
forefts beyond them ; and thele trees, having flat 
tops, and all of equal height, feemed to be a green 
plain, lifted up and fupported upon columns in the 
air, round the Weft fide of the bay. 
The Cupreflus difticha ftands in the firft order of 
North American trees. Its majeftic ftature is fur- 
prifmg ; . and on approaching it, we are ftruck 
with a kind of awe, at beholding the ftatelinefs of 
the trunk, lifting its cumbrous top towards the Ikies, 
and calling a wide fhade upon the ground, as a 
dark intervening cloud, which, for a time, excludes 
* 1 have made ufe of (he terms alligator and crocodile indifcriminately 
for this animal* alligator being the country name. 
the 
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