ed about it, and when the boy had got up
the anchor, Cornwood rang the bell to start the engine. Everything
worked as regularly as though the little yacht had been a steamer of a
thousand tons. The pilot ran the boat down the river about a mile below
Magnolia, and then stood into an inlet, at the head of which we found
the stream. It was a considerable river, but Cornwood seemed to be
quite at home in it. It was a crooked stream, but the pilot ran from
one side to the other, talking to me all the time with the utmost
indifference.

I observed him for a couple of hours, until I was entirely satisfied
that he knew what he was about, and then joined the party astern. It
was seldom that a steamer disturbed the waters of Black Creek, never in
these days, except when a party of curious excursionists desired to
explore the lonely region. The Gazelle made about eight knots an hour,
and at eleven o'clock we were fast to a dilapidated pier at the ruined
town of Middleburg. It lay about half-way between the St. Johns and the
Atlantic, Gulf and West India Company's Railroad, extending from
Fernandina to Cedar Keys, on the Gulf of Mexico, intended as part of a
quick route to Havana. The building of this railroad, by diverting from
it the trade and transportation of a considerable region of country,
had utterly ruined Middleburg, and it was as lone and deserted as
Pompeii under the ashes of Vesuvius. Hardly a family was to be found in
its abandoned houses.

A glance at the ruins was enough to satisfy the party, especially as
Cornwood warned us not to enter the houses, or we should be covered
with fleas. These pests are not uncommon in Florida. Green Cove Springs
formerly had some, which were supposed to be scattered through the
place by the pigs that ran at large. The evil was corrected by keeping
them out of the village. The fleas were a vastly greater terror to the
ladies than the alligators, of which there were a great many in the
creek. Its quiet waters, not often disturbed by steamers, afforded them
a peaceful retreat. Owen and Colonel Shepard had brought their guns
with them, and had fired at some of the larger ones seen on the shore;
but the saurians might have laughed at them, if they were given to
expressing themselves in that manner. Cornwood smiled every time one of
them fired.

We ran up the "North Prong" of the river a few miles. Under the shade
of some spreading oaks we stopped for the lunch which our host had
provi