Various - Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

[Note: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.]

"And if you do get lost after that, it's no great matter," said the county clerk, folding up his map, "for then all you've got to do is to find William Townsend and inquire."

He had been giving us the itinerary for our "cross-country" journey, by way of the Lakes, to Ekoniah Scrub. How many of all the Florida tourists know where that is? I wonder. Or even what it is—the strange amphibious land which goes on from year to year "developing"—the solid ground into marshy "parrairas," the prairies into lakes, bright, sparkling sapphires which Nature is threading, one by one, year by year, upon her emerald chaplet of forest borderland? How many of them all have guessed that close at hand, hidden away amid the shadows of the scrub-oaks, lies her laboratory, where any day they may steal in upon her at her work and catch a world a-making?

There are three individuals who know a little more about it now than they did a few weeks since—three, or shall we not rather say four? For who shall say that Barney gained less from the excursion than the Artist, the Scribe and the Small Boy who were his fellow-travellers? That Barney became a party to the expedition in the character, so to speak, of a lay-brother, expected to perform the servile labor of the establishment while his superiors were worshipping at Nature's shrines, in nowise detracted from his improvement of the bright spring holiday. It was, indeed, upon the Small Boy who beat the mule, rather than upon the mule that drew the wagon, that the fatigues of the expedition fell. "He just glimpses around at me with his old eyeball," says the Small Boy, exasperate, throwing away his broken cudgel, "and that's all the good it does."

We knew nothing more of Ekoniah when we set out upon our journey than that it was the old home of an Indian tribe in the long-ago days before primeval forest had given place to the second growth of "scrub," and that it was a region unknown to the Northern tourist. It lies to the south-west of Magnolia, our point of departure on the St. John's River, but at first our route lay westerly, that it might include the lake-country of the Ridge.

"It's a pretty kentry," said a friendly "Cracker," of whom, despite the county clerk's itinerary, we were fain to ask the way within two hours after starting—"a right pretty kentry, but it's all alike. You'll be tired of it afore you're done gone halfway."

Is he blind, our friend the Cracker? Already, in the very outset of our journey, we have beheld such varied beauties as have steeped our souls in joy. After weeks of rainless weather the morning had been showery, and on our setting forth at noon we had found the world new washed and decked for our coming. Birds were singing, rainbows glancing, in quivering, water-laden trees; flowers were shimmering in the sunshine; the young growth was springing up glorious from the blackness of desolating winter fires. Such tender tones of pink and gray! such fiery-hearted reds and browns and olive-greens! such misty vagueness in the shadows! such brilliance in the sunlight that melted through the openings of the woods! "All alike," indeed! No "accidents" of rock or hill are here, but oh the grandeur of those far-sweeping curves of undulating surface! the mystery of those endless aisles of solemn-whispering pines! the glory of color, intense and fiery, which breathes into every object a throbbing, living soul!

For hours we journeyed through the forest, always in the centre of a vast circle of scattered pines, upon the outer edge of which the trees grew dense and dark, stretching away into infinity. Our road wandered in and out among the prostrate victims of many a summer tempest: now we were winding around dark "bays" of sweet-gum and magnolia; now skirting circular ponds of delicate young cypress; now crossing narrow "branches" sunk deep in impenetrable "hummocks" of close-crowded oak and ash and maple, thick-matted with vines and undergrowth; now pausing to gather orchis and pitcher-plants and sun-kisses and andromeda; now fording the broad bend of Peter's Creek where it flows, sapphire in the sunshine, out from the moss-draped live-oaks between high banks of red and yellow clays and soft gray sand, to lose itself in a tangle of flowering shrubs; now losing and finding our way among the intricate cross-roads that lead by Bradley's Creek and Darbin Savage's tramway and the "new-blazed road" of the county clerk's itinerary. Suddenly the sky grew dark: thunder began to roll, and—were we in the right road? It seemed suspiciously well travelled, for now we called to mind that Middleburg was nigh at hand, and thither we had been warned not to go.

There was a house in the distance, the second we had seen since leaving the "settle_ments_" near the river. And there we learned that we were right and wrong: it was the Middleburg road. After receiving sundry lucid directions respecting a "blind road" and an "old field," we turned away. How dark it was growing! how weirdly soughed the wind among the pine tops! how bodingly the thunder growled afar! There came a great slow drop: another, and suddenly, with swiftly-rushing sound, the rain was upon us, drenching us all at once before waterproofs and umbrellas could be made available.

It was then that Barney showed the greatness of his soul. In the confusion of the moment we had run afoul of a stout young oak, which obstinately menaced the integrity of our axle. It was only possible to back out of the predicament, but Barney scorned the thought of retreat. Not all the blandishments of the Small Boy, whether brought to bear in the form of entreaties, remonstrances, jerks or threats, availed: Barney stood unmoved, and the hatchet was our only resource. How that mule's eye twinkled as from time to time he cast a backward glance upon the Small Boy wrestling with a dull hatchet and a sturdy young scrub-oak under the pelting rain, amid lightning-flash and thunder-peal, needs a more graphic pen than mine to describe. A better-drenched biped than climbed into the wagon at the close of this episode, or a more thoroughly-satisfied quadruped than jogged along before him, it would be difficult to find.

As suddenly as they had come up the clouds rolled away, and sunlight flamed out from the west—so suddenly that it caught the rain halfway and filled the air with tremulous rainbow hues. Then burst out afresh the songs of birds, sweet scents thrilled up from flower and shrub, the very earth was fragrant, and fresh, resinous odors exhaled from every tree. The sun sank down in gold and purple glory and night swept over the dark woods. Myriad fireflies flitted round, insects chirped in every hollow, the whippoorwill called from the distant thicket, the night-hawk circled in the open glade. A cheerful sound of cow-bells broke the noisy stillness, the forest opened upon a row of dark buildings and darker orange trees, and barking of dogs and kindly voices told us that rest was at hand.

No words can do justice to the hospitality of Floridians, whether native or foreign. We were now to begin an experience which was to last us through our entire journey. Here we were, a wandering company of who-knows-what, arriving hungry, drenched and unexpected long after the supper-hour, and our mere appearance was the "open sesame" to all the treasures of house and barn. Not knowing what our hap might be, we had gone provided with blankets and food, but both proved to be superfluous wherever we could find a house. Bad might be the best it afforded, but the best was at our service. At K–'s Ferry it was decidedly not bad. Abundance reigned there, though in a quaint old fashion, and very soon after our arrival we were warming and drying ourselves before a cheerful fire, while from the kitchen came most heartening sounds and smells, as of fizzling ham and bubbling coffee.