pineapples, with which they claim a family relationship,--the exuberant
hanging moss, itself another air-plant, ferns, and vines. The ferns, a
species of polypody ("resurrection ferns," I heard them called),
completely covered the upper surface of many of the larger branches,
while the huge vines twisted about the trunks, or, quite as often,
dropped straight from the treetops to the ground.

In the very heart of this dense, dark forest (a forest primeval, I
should have said, but I was assured that the ground had been under
cultivation so recently that, to a practiced eye, the cotton-rows were
still visible) stood a grove of wild orange-trees, the handsome fruit
glowing like lamps amid the deep green foliage. There was little other
brightness. Here and there in the undergrowth were yellow jessamine
vines, but already--March 11--they were past flowering. Almost or quite
the only blossom just now in sight was the faithful round-leaved
houstonia, growing in small flat patches in the sand on the edge of the
road, with budding partridge-berry--a Yankee in Florida--to keep it
company. Warblers and titmice twittered in the leafy treetops, and
butterflies of several kinds, notably one gorgeous creature in yellow
and black, like a larger and more resplendent Turnus, went fluttering
through the underwoods. I could have believed myself in the heart of a
limitless forest; but Florida hammocks, so far as I have seen, are
seldom of great extent, and the road presently crossed another railway
track, and then, in a few rods more, came out into the sunny pine-woods,
as one might emerge from a cathedral into the open day. Two men were
approaching in a wagon (except on Sunday, I am not certain that I ever
met a foot passenger in the flat-woods), and I improved the opportunity
to make sure of my course. "Go about fifty yards," said one of them,
"and turn to the right; then about fifty yards more, and turn to the
left. _That_ road will take you to the mill." Here was a man who had