om his improvement of the bright spring holiday.
It was, indeed, upon the Small Boy who beat the mule, rather than upon
the mule that drew the wagon, that the fatigues of the expedition fell.
"He just glimpses around at me with his old eyeball," says the Small
Boy, exasperate, throwing away his broken cudgel, "and that's all the
good it does."

We knew nothing more of Ekoniah when we set out upon our journey than
that it was the old home of an Indian tribe in the long-ago days before
primeval forest had given place to the second growth of "scrub," and
that it was a region unknown to the Northern tourist. It lies to the
south-west of Magnolia, our point of departure on the St. John's River,
but at first our route lay westerly, that it might include the
lake-country of the Ridge.

"It's a pretty kentry," said a friendly "Cracker," of whom, despite the
county clerk's itinerary, we were fain to ask the way within two hours
after starting--"a right pretty kentry, but it's all alike. You'll be
tired of it afore you're done gone halfway."

Is he blind, our friend the Cracker? Already, in the very outset of our
journey, we have beheld such varied beauties as have steeped our souls
in joy. After weeks of rainless weather the morning had been showery,
and on our setting forth at noon we had found the world new washed and
decked for our coming. Birds were singing, rainbows glancing, in
quivering, water-laden trees; flowers were shimmering in the sunshine;
the young growth was springing up glorious from the blackness of
desolating winter fires. Such tender tones of pink and gray! such
fiery-hearted reds and browns and olive-greens! such misty vagueness in
the shadows! such brilliance in the sunlight that melted through the
openings of the woods! "All alike," indeed! No "accidents" of rock or
hill are here, but oh the grandeur of those far-sweeping curves of
undulating surface! the mystery of those endless aisles of
solemn-whispering pines! the glory of color, intense and fiery, which
breathes into every object a throbbing, living soul!

For hours we journeyed through the forest, always in the centre of a
vast circle of scattered pines, upon the outer edge of which the trees
grew dense and dark, stretching away into infinity. Our road wandered
in and out among the prostrate victims of many a summer tempest: now we
were winding around dark "bays" of sweet-gum and magnolia; now skirting
circular ponds of delicate young cypress; no