I want to rest and I do not want
politics to enter my head for two weeks."

"Then you say positively that you are not down here to look after
your fences for a presidential boom in 1888?"

"Most decidedly not. I will not say a word about politics until
I reach Nashville on my return. There I take up the political
string again and will hold to it for some time."

Manderson proposed a walk through the city, the reporter being our
guide. Orange trees were to be seen on every side. We were
surprised to find so large and prosperous a city in Florida, with so
many substantial business houses and residences. The weather was
delightful, neither too hot nor too cold, and in striking contrast
with the cold and damp March air of Washington. From Jacksonville
we went in a steamboat up the St. John's River to Enterprise.
Florida was the part of the United States to be first touched by
the feet of white men, and yet it seemed to me to be the most
backward in the march of progress. It was interesting chiefly from
its weird and valueless swamps, its sandy reaches and its alligators.
It is a peninsula, dividing the Gulf of Mexico from the ocean, and
a large part of it is almost unexplored. The part we traversed
was low, swampy, with dense thickets, and apparently incapable of
reclamation by drainage. The soil was sandy and poor and the
impression left on my mind was that it could not be made very
productive. There were occasional spots where the earth was far
enough above the sea to insure the growth of orange trees, but even
then the soil was thin, and to an Ohio farmer would appear only to
be a worthless sand bank. This, however, does not apply to all
points in Florida, especially not to the Indian River region, where
fine oranges and other semitropical fruits are raised in great
abundance. The Indian River is a beautiful body of water, really
an arm of the sea, on the eastern coast of Florida, separated from
the Atlantic by a narrow strip of land. The water is salt and
abounds in game and fish.

At Sanford our party was joined by Senator Aldrich and his wife,
and we proceeded by way of Tampa and Key West to Havana, where we
arrived on the 17th of March. The short sail of ninety miles from
Key West transported us to a country of perpetual summers, as
different from the United States as is old Egypt. After being
comfortably installed in a hotel we were visited by Mr. Williams,
our consul general, who brought us an