We walked up to the hotel, and dined with the proprietor.
CHAPTER XXII.
FISHING IN DOCTOR'S LAKE.
After a very good dinner, we were invited to take a ride in an Orange Park carriage. The vehicle was a platform wagon, with stakes, such as is called a "hay rigging" in some parts of the North, drawn by a pair of mules. I found that a mule in this locality cost more than a house for the ordinary settler. On the platform were placed chairs enough to seat all the party, including Cornwood, Washburn, and myself. The proprietor was the driver, and as we proceeded on the excursion, he explained everything of interest. He drove to an old orange-tree that had borne four thousand oranges that year. Near it was a tangled grove of fig-trees, the first I had ever seen.
From this point we struck into the woods. We crossed a clear brook which was never dry; and Miss Margie asked if there were any snakes on the place. Mr. Benedict thought there might be, though he had never seen any.
"Oh, isn't that magnificent! Perfectly lovely!" cried Miss Edith in ecstasies.
"Beautiful!" added Miss Margie. "Did you ever see anything like it?"
I had not, for one. The sight which had called forth these enthusiastic exclamations was a perfect forest of jasmine in full blossom. The trees that grew near the brook were of a young growth, and for half an acre in extent they were loaded with jasmine vines so thickly covered with flowers that the green leaves could hardly be seen. The ladies were all delighted. Washburn and I got out, and gathered half a cord or so of the vines, thus loaded with blossoms, and the wagon was as fragrant as a perfume shop.
We entered a forest of pines, where we found a house built by a couple of young men who had been several years in Cuba, and intended to cultivate the sugar-cane. In the midst of the woods we came to an old church, without a house within a mile of it, and which had been three or four miles from any dwelling in the days when it was used. It was a rather large log-house, now in a ruinous condition, in which the planters and their families had once attended divine services. Not far from it the proprietor stopped his team, and we all got off the wagon. We were conducted to the "Roaring Magnetic Spring," which was one of the features of the place. Florida is a great place for springs of various kinds. We were all arranged on a wooden platform over the spring, which was a tunnel-shaped cavity in the blue sand of the earth, about ten feet deep.