They
were a world the like of which I had never seen; and wherever I went in
eastern Florida, I made it one of my earliest concerns to seek them out.
My first impression was one of disappointment, or perhaps I should
rather say, of bewilderment. In fact, I returned from my first visit to
the flat-woods under the delusion that I had not been into them at all.
This was at St. Augustine, whither I had gone after a night only in
Jacksonville. I looked about the quaint little city, of course, and went
to the South Beach, on St. Anastasia Island; then I wished to see the
pine lands. They were to be found, I was told, on the other side of the
San Sebastian. The sun was hot (or so it seemed to a man fresh from the
rigors of a New England winter), and the sand was deep; but I sauntered
through New Augustine, and pushed on up the road toward Moultrie (I
believe it was), till the last houses were passed and I came to the edge
of the pine-woods. Here, presently, the roads began to fork in a very
confusing manner. The first man I met--a kindly cracker--cautioned me
against getting lost; but I had no thought of taking the slightest risk
of that kind. I was not going to _explore_ the woods, but only to enter
them, sit down, look about me, and listen. The difficulty was to get
into them. As I advanced, they receded. It was still only the beginning
of a wood; the trees far apart and comparatively small, the ground
covered thickly with saw palmetto, interspersed here and there with
patches of brown grass or sedge.
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