The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Florida Sketch-Book, by Bradford Torrey

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Title: A Florida Sketch-Book

Author: Bradford Torrey

Release Date: January 21, 2004 [EBook #10760]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK ***

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and the Internet Archive; University of Florida

[Transcriber's Note: The original scan for text page 142 is missing
This is noted where it occurs in the text.]

A FLORIDA SKETCH BOOK

By

BRADFORD TORREY

Books by Mr. Torrey.

BIRDS IN THE BUSH.
A RAMBLER'S LEASE.
THE FOOT-PATH WAY.
A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK.

1894

CONTENTS

IN THE FLAT-WOODS

BESIDE THE MARSH

ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA

ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH

A MORNING AT THE OLD SUGAR MILL

ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S

ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD

ORNITHOLOGY ON A COTTON PLANTATION

A FLORIDA SHRINE

WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE

A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK.

IN THE FLAT-WOODS.

In approaching Jacksonville by rail, the traveler rides hour after
hour through seemingly endless pine barrens, otherwise known as low
pine-woods and flat-woods, till he wearies of the sight. It would be
hard, he thinks, to imagine a region more unwholesome looking and
uninteresting, more poverty-stricken and God-forsaken, in its entire
aspect. Surely, men who would risk life in behalf of such a country
deserved to win their cause.

Monotonous as the flat-woods were, however, and malarious as they
looked,--arid wastes and stretches of stagnant water flying past the car
window in perpetual alternation, I was impatient to get into them. They
were a world the like of which I had never seen; and wherever I went in
eastern Florida, I made it one of my earliest concerns to seek them out.

My first impression was one of disappointment, or perhaps I should
rather say, of bewilderment. In fact, I returned from my first visit to
the flat-woods under the delusion that I had not been into them at all.
This was at St. Augustine, whither I had gone after a night only in
Jacksonville. I looked about the quaint little ci