eys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas
frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will
therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields
and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps
first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang upon the very edge
of the green hill near the house, we suddenly find ourselves just over
a large basin enclosed with an octagonal brick wall, except where the
clear water runs out over silvery gravel between curbings of heavy
plank. This is the spring, and a queer sort of spring it is. Just
under the tree-roots the water is but a few inches deep over a bed
of bluish-gray limestone, and in no part of the basin, which is about
twelve by twenty feet, does it seem to be more than a half fathom in
depth. But just under the ledge of rock a shelving hole slopes back
under the hill, the bottom of which no man has ever found. This hole
is only about three feet by two, and the narrow outlet to the basin is
but four inches deep, and loses itself within fifty yards in an oozy
bog. Yet, peering into the depth, you catch a glimpse of the black
head and beady white eyes of a mudfish at least two feet long, and
presently of the silvery side of a three-pound bass which glides
across the opening. Drop a line with the cork set at ten feet, and you
will draw out of the very bosom of the earth a mess of fat perch and
bream each as large and as thick as your hand, and eels three feet in
length are sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two miles away,
in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two
similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet
which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a
little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre
depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular
fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly
emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. Hundreds of
perch, bream and young bass sport in the shallow parts, and are easily
caught with rod and line, the water being so clear that you can watch
the fish gorging the bait, and strike when the entire hook disappears.
Now, where do these fish live? where do they breed? and upon what do
they feed? But the mystery does not end there. About a mile in the
opposite direction as we walk through a little belt of wet pineland,
where the woodco