“On one occasion the Indian chief, our host, my husband and myself, started in a boat to examine the marvelous source of the Homosassa River, a few miles distant.
“This wonderful river springs a full-fledged flood from the ground, and is already a hundred yards in width within that distance of its spring, and so deep as to be navigable to moderate-sized craft.
“When our boat entered the cove where the river took its origin, it was with a feeling of fearful awe that I experienced the sensation of floating between heaven and earth. Above us was the pure ether, walled in on three sides by giant palms; beneath us lay a stupendous well of water, clear as the atmosphere above us, and calm and silent as the grave.
“Far down in its transparent depths we could distinctly see every tint and every movement of the smallest fish, just as clearly, in fact, as we could see the movement and brilliant hues of the birds and insects flitting to and fro between the trees overhead.
“To me, unaccustomed to such wonders, the scene verged on the supernatural, and I felt as if there was something uncanny in it,—a feeling destined soon to be intensified a thousand-fold. In order to illustrate the transparency of the water, which was there some forty feet in depth to the peddled bottom, my husband threw some small silver coins, one after another, into the spring, in which, contrary to expectation, there were no air bubbles to distract the view. As we watched them falling down through the water, slowly, as a feather falls through the air, it seemed almost as if they would never reach the bottom. At last, one of these coins fell between two great rocks, directly under us, which the shadow of our boat had prevented us from seeing sooner.
“ ‘Let the Water-Lily look,’ exclaimed the Indian, pointing to the coin falling, and calling me by the poetic name with which he was accustomed to designate me.
“As the small silver piece glanced between the dark rocks it seemed to illuminate the gray blackness in which their narrow walls plunged the space between them, until finally the shadow hid it while still falling from sight.
“ ‘Great Heavens!’ I exclaimed shudderingly, ‘how deep is the water between those rocks?’
“ ‘Ah! who knows,’ replied my husband.
“For a while a spell of silence fell upon us as we lay in the welcome shadow of the fringed palms, so deliciously cool after the heat of the exposed river.