Hitherto we had been travelling through a pine forest. About noon we passed from it into a large tract of hommock, that stretched right and left of our course. The road or path we followed ran directly across it.
The scene became suddenly changed as if by a magic transformation. The soil under our feet was different, as also the foliage over our heads. The pines were no longer around us. Our view was interrupted on all sides by a thick frondage of evergreen trees—some with broad shining coriaceous leaves, as the magnolia, that here grew to its full stature. Alongside it stood the live-oak, the red mulberry, the Bourbon laurel, iron-wood, Halesia and Callicarpa, while towering above all rose the cabbage-palm, proudly waving its plumed crest in the breeze, as if saluting with supercilious nod its humbler companions beneath.
For a long while we travelled under deep shadow—not formed by the trees alone, but by their parasites as well—the large grape-vine loaded with leaves—the coiling creepers of smilax and hedera—the silvery tufts of tillandsia shrouded the sky from our sight. The path was winding and intricate. Prostrate trunks often carried it in a circuitous course, and often was it obstructed by the matted trellis of the muscadine, whose gnarled limbs stretched from tree to tree like the great stay-cables of a ship.
The scene was somewhat gloomy, yet grand and impressive. It chimed with my feelings at the moment; and soothed me even more than the airy open of the pine-woods.
Having crossed this belt of dark forest, near its opposite edge we came upon one of these singular ponds already described—a circular basin surrounded by hillocks and rocks of testaceous formation—an extinct water volcano. In the barbarous jargon of the Saxon settler, these are termed sinks, though most inappropriately, for where they contain water, it is always of crystalline brightness and purity.
The one at which we had arrived was nearly full of the clear liquid. Our horses wanted drink—so did we. It was the hottest hour of the day. The woods beyond looked thinner and less shady. It was just the time and place to make a halt; and, dismounting, we prepared to rest and refresh ourselves.
Jake carried a capacious haversack, whose distended sides—with the necks of a couple of bottles protruding from the pouch—gave proof of the tender solicitude we had left behind us.
The ride had given me an appetite, the heat had caused thirst; but the contents of the haversack soon satisfied the one, and a cup of claret, mingled with water from the cool calcareous fountain, gave luxurious relief to the other.
A cigar was the natural finish to this al fresco repast; and, having lighted one, I lay down upon my back, canopied by the spreading branches of an umbrageous magnolia.
I watched the blue smoke as it curled upward among the shining leaves, causing the tiny insects to flutter away from their perch.