During the "season," boats continually run from Jacksonville to Enterprise, and back again; the round trip being made for a moderate sum, and giving, in a very easy and comparatively inexpensive manner, as much of the peculiar scenery as mere tourists care to see. On returning, a digression is often made at Tekoi, where passengers cross a horse-railroad of fifteen miles to St. Augustine; thus rendering their survey of East Florida more complete. In fact, what may be seen and known of the State in such a trip is about all that the majority of tourists see and know.
The great majority also perform this trip, and see this region, in the dead of winter, when certainly one-half of the glorious forests upon the shore are bare of leaves.
It is true that the great number of evergreen-trees here make the shores at all times quite different from those of a Northern climate; yet the difference between spring and winter is as great here as there.
Our party were resolute in declining all invitations to join parties in January, February, and March; being determined to wait till the new spring foliage was in its glory.
When the magnolia-flowers were beginning to blossom, we were ready, and took passage—a joyous party of eight or ten individuals—on the steamer "Darlington," commanded by Capt. Broch, and, as is often asserted, by "Commodore Rose."
This latter, in this day of woman's rights, is no mean example of female energy and vigor. She is stewardess of the boat, and magnifies her office. She is a colored woman, once a slave owned by Capt. Broch, but emancipated, as the story goes, for her courage, and presence of mind, in saving his life in a steamboat disaster.
Rose is short and thick, weighing some two or three hundred, with a brown complexion, and a pleasing face and fine eyes. Her voice, like that of most colored women, is soft, and her manner of speaking pleasing. All this, however, relates to her demeanor when making the agreeable to passengers. In other circumstances, doubtless, she can speak louder, and with considerable more emphasis; and show, in short, those martial attributes which have won for her the appellation of the "Commodore." It is asserted that the whole charge of provisioning and running the boat, and all its internal arrangements, vests in Madam Rose; and that nobody can get ahead of her in a bargain, or resist her will in an arrangement.
She knows every inch of the river, every house, every plantation along shore, its former or present occupants and history; and is always ready with an answer to a question. The arrangement and keeping of the boat do honor to her. Nowhere in Florida does the guest sit at a more bountifully-furnished table. Our desserts and pastry were really, for the wilderness, something quite astonishing.
The St. John's River below Pilatka has few distinguishing features to mark it out from other great rivers. It is so wide, that the foliage of the shores cannot be definitely made out; and the tourist here, expecting his palm-trees and his magnolias and flowering-vines, is disappointed by sailing in what seems a never-ending great lake, where the shores are off in the distance too far to make out any thing in particular. But, after leaving Pilatka, the river grows narrower, the overhanging banks approach nearer, and the foliage becomes more decidedly tropical in its character. Our boat, after touching as usual at Hibernia, Magnolia, and Green Cove, brought up at Pilatka late in the afternoon, made but a short stop, and was on her way again.
It was the first part of May; and the forests were in that fulness of leafy perfection which they attain in the month of June at the North. But there is a peculiar, vivid brilliancy about the green of the new spring-leaves here, which we never saw elsewhere. It is a brilliancy like some of the new French greens, now so much in vogue, and reminding one of the metallic brightness of birds and insects. In the woods, the cypress is a singular and beautiful feature. It attains to a great age and immense size. The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth and white as ivory, while its light, feathery foliage is of the most dazzling golden-green; and rising, as it often does, amid clumps of dark varnished evergreens,—bay and magnolia and myrtle,—it has a singular and beautiful effect. The long swaying draperies of the gray moss interpose everywhere their wavering outlines and pearl tints amid the brightness and bloom of the forest, giving to its deep recesses the mystery of grottoes hung with fanciful vegetable stalactites.