e
trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by
tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and
abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. It was a new heaven
and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries.

As soon as the hospitable people learned that I represented our
beloved Uncle Sam, I was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels,
anywhere and everywhere.

The Count De Barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the American
representative of "Mum's Extra Dry," and who had received numerous
valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his
palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly St. John's River,
where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes
and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the
life-giving beams of the sun.

The stately trees along the banks, old when Adam was a baby, were
covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then
vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe
fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee
deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on
the surface and under the shallow river.

We would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the
bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by
the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the
negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our
delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in
fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a
land and a river "flowing with milk and honey."

The words from Willis' confessional came floating to our minds.

"On ocean many a gladsome night,
When heaved the long and sullen sea,
With only waves and stars in sight,
We stole along by isles of balm;
We furled before the coming gale,
We slept amid the breathless calm,
We flew beneath the straining sail.

Oh, softly on these banks of haze
Her rosy face the summer lays,
Becalmed along the azure sky
The argosies of cloudland lie;
The holy silence is God's voice
We look, and listen, and rejoice."

When the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of
heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the
angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them
with