The judge pressed us to stay and dine, but we had arranged for a gypsy dinner in the woods and were anxious to push on. Push on! How Barney would smile could he hear the word! He never did anything half so energetic as to push: he did not even pull.
So we bade farewell to our genial host and started westwardly again. We were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State, and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes. All through the week which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during the fifteen-mile drive between Black Creek and Kingsley's Pond.
Kingsley's Pond, the highest body of water in the State, is the first of a long succession of lakes which, lying between the St. John's and the railway, have only lately been, as it were, discovered by the Northerner. It is perfectly circular in form, being precisely two miles across in every direction. Like all the lakes of Florida, it is of immense depth, and its waters are so transparent that the white sand at the bottom may be seen glistening like stars. In common with the other waters of this region, it is surrounded by a hard beach of white sand, rising gradually up to a beautifully-wooded slope, being quite free from the marshes which too often render the lakes of Florida unapproachable.
One of the Northern colonies which within the last two years have discovered this delightful region has settled on the shores of Kingsley's Pond. Although an infant of only twenty months, the village has made excellent growth and gives promise of a bright future. Farming is not largely followed, the principal industry of these and the other Northern colonists being orange-culture—a business to which the climate is wonderfully propitious, the dry, pure air of this district being alike free from excessive summer heats and from the frosts which are occasionally disastrous to groves situated on lower ground in the same latitude.
Though there are few native Floridians in this part of the country, the neighborhood of the lake rejoices in the possession of a Cracker doctress of wondrous powers. Who but her knows that chapter in the book of Daniel the reading of which stays the flowing of blood, or that other chapter potent to extinguish forest-fires? One does not need a long residence in the State to learn to appreciate the good-fortune of the Lakers in this particular.
Not far from the village, on the western shore of the pond, lives the one "old settler." He met us with the hearty welcome which we had learned almost to look for as a right, and sitting on his front piazza in the shade of his orange trees, gladdening our eyes with the view of his vine-embowered pigpen, we listened to the legend of the pond:
"Yes, I've lived yere four-and-twenty year, but I done kim to Floridy nigh on forty year ago: walked yere from Georgy to jine the Injun war. I done found this place a-scoutin' about, and when I got married I kim yere to settle. The Yankee folks wants to change the name o' the pond to Summit Lake and one thing or 'nother, but I allays votes square agin it every time, and allays will. You see, hit don't ought to be changed. I don't mind the pond part: they mought call it lake ef they think it sounds better, but Kingsley's it has to be. K-i-n-g-l-e-s-l-e-y: that, I take it, is the prompt way to spell the name of the man as named it, and that's the name it has to have. You see hit was this a-way: Kingsley were a mail-rider—leastways, express—in the old Injun wartime, I dunno how long ago. They was a fort on the pond them days, over on the south side. Wal, Kingsley were a-comin' down toward the fort from the no'th when he thort he see an Injun. He looked behind, and, sure enough, there they was, a-closin' in on him. He looked ahead agin. Shore's you're bo'hn there was a double row on 'em—better'n a hunderd—on all two sides of the trail. He hadn't a minit to study, and jist one thing to do, and he done hit. He jist clapped spurs to his critter and made for the pond. He knowed what they wanted of him"—confidentially and solemnly: "it were their intention to ketch him and scalp him alive, you know. Wal, they follered him to the pond, a-whoopin' and a-yellin' all the way, makin' shore on him. When he got to the pond he rid right in, the Injuns a'ter him, but his critter soon began to gin out. When he see that he jist gethered up his kit and jumped into the water, and swum for dear life. Two mile good that feller swum, and saved his kit and musket. The Injuns got his critter, but you never see nothin' so mad as they was to see him git off that a-way. The soldiers at the fort was a-watchin' all the time. They run down to meet him: they see he looked kinder foolish as he swum in, and as soon as he struck the shore he jist flung himself on the sand, and laid for half an hour athout openin' his eyes or speakin'. Then he done riz right up and toted his kit to the commander, and axed to hev the pond named a'ter him. The commander said it mought be so, and so hit was; and so it has to be, I says, and allays will."
[Illustration: TWIN LAKE.]
It would be impossible to detail the exquisite and varied beauty of the way between Kingsley's Pond and Ekoniah Scrub. Through the fair primeval forest we wandered, following the old Alachua Trail, the very name of which enhanced the charm of the present scene by calling up thrilling fancies of the past; for this is the famous Indian war-path from the hunting-grounds of the interior to the settlements on the frontier, and may well be the oldest and the most adventure-fraught thoroughfare in the United States. We could hardly persuade ourselves that we were not passing through some magnificent old estate—of late, perhaps, somewhat fallen into neglect—so perfect was the lawn-like smoothness of the grassy uplands, so rhythmical were the undulations of the slopes, so majestic the natural avenues of enormous oaks, so admirable the diversity of hill and dell, knoll and glade, shrubbery and lawn, forest and park, interspersed with frequent sheets of water—Blue Pond, rivalling the sky in color; Sandhill Pond, deep set among high wooded slopes, with picturesque log mill and house; Magnolia Lake, with its flawless mirror; Crystal, of more than crystal clearness, with gorgeous sunset memories and sweet recollections of kindly hospitalities in the two homes which crown its twin heights; Bedford and Brooklyn Lakes, with log cottages beneath clustering trees; Minnie Lake, and its great alligator sleeping on a log; starry Lily-Pad; and Osceola's Punch-bowl, deep enough, and none too large, to hold the potations of a Worthy; Twin Lakes, scarce divided by the island in their midst; Double Pond, low sunk in the green forest slope, a perfect circle bisected by a wooded ridge; Geneva Lake, dotted with islands and beautiful with shining orange-groves;—always among the lawns and glades, the forest-slopes and aisles of pines, with sough of wind and song of bird, and fragrant wild perfumes. Always with bright "bits" of life between the long, grand silences—a group of men faring on foot across the pine level; a rosy, bareheaded girl—the only girl in the place—searching for calves in the dingle, who gave us flowers and told us the road with the sweet, lingering cadence of the South in her velvet voice; two men riding by turns the mule that bore their sacks of corn to mill; two boys carrying a great cross-cut saw along a sloping lakeside, a noble Newfoundland dog frisking beside them; the fleet bay horse and erect military figure of our host at Crystal Lake guiding us among the intricacies of the Lake Colony. Always with sunny memories of happy hours—gypsy dinners beside golden-watered "branch" or sapphire lake; the cheery half hour in the log house on the hill above the little grist-mill, with the bright young Philadelphians who have here cast in their lot; the abundant feast in the farm-house under the orange trees, and the "old-time" stories of the after-dinner hour; the pleasant days at Crystal Lake, where our first day's drenching resulted so happily in a slight illness that detained us in that lovely spot, and showed us, in the new colony lately settled on this and the adjacent lakes, how refinement and cultivation, lending elegance to rude toil and harsh privation, may realize even Utopian dreams.
The great farm on Geneva Lake was the first old plantation which we had seen since leaving Kingsley's, and this lies on the outskirts of Ekoniah Scrub, which has long been settled by native Floridians or Georgians. "Hit ain't a farmin' kentry, above there on the sandhills," said our host of the thrifty old farm on Lake Geneva. "It's fine for oranges an' bananas, but the Scrub's better for plantin'. Talk about oranges! Look a' that tree afore you! A sour tree hit were—right smart big, too—but four year ago I sawed it off near the ground and stuck in five buds. That tree is done borne three craps a'ready—fifteen oranges the second year from the bud, a hundred and fifty the third, and last year we picked eight hundred off her. Seedlin's? Anybody mought hev fruit seven year from the seed, but they must take care o' the trees to do it. Look a' them trees by the fence: eight year old, them is. Some of 'em bore the sixth year: every one on 'em is sot full now—full enough for young trees.