5.--JACKSONVILLE TO TALLAHASSEE, QUINCY AND ST. MARKS.
(Tallahassee, and Pensacola & Georgia, and Florida, Atlanta & Gulf Central railways. Time 14 hours, one train daily.)
The train leaves Jacksonville following the old military road, and soon enters open pine woods. The first station is _White House_ (eleven miles). The next (eight miles) is _Baldwin_, (Florida House, M. Colding Proprietor). Here the Florida railway connects for Fernandina, Cedar Keys, Gainesville, and other points in East Florida.
Beyond Baldwin the train passes over a swampy country intersected by numerous creeks flowing northward into the St. Mary’s river, which near here makes its South Prong far to the south. _Sanderson_, (eighteen miles) is an insignificant station. _Olustee_ (ten miles) is a rising village in the midst of a wide level tract, (no hotel; board at private houses $1.50 to $2.00 a day.) Ocean Pond, half a mile from the road (right hand side), is a handsome sheet of water, nearly circular, about four miles in diameter. It is deep, and offers excellent fishing.
(twelve miles; two tolerable hotels, $3.00 per day, $15. per week; newspaper, _Lake City Press_; telegraph office) is a promising place of several hundred inhabitants. Three miles south of the city is Alligator Lake, a body of water without any visible outlet. In the wet season it is three or four miles across, but in winter it retires into a deep sink hole, and the former bottom is transformed into a grassy meadow.
Is the next stopping place (twelve miles. The Griffin House, and several boarding houses; $1.50 per day, $6.00 per week). It is a prosperous village of 150 inhabitants. The water is good, and the neighborhood healthy. Its height above tide water is 200 feet.
Stages leave Welborn daily for the *_White Sulphur Springs_, on the Suwannee river, eight miles north of the station (fare $2.00). These springs are a favorite resort for persons suffering from rheumatism and skin diseases. They have been estimated to discharge about three hundred hogsheads a minute. The *hotel, ($3.00 per day, $12.00 per week, $40.00 per month,) accommodating seventy-five guests, stands within a few yards of the Suwannee river, there a pretty stream about fifty yards wide. There is also a private boarding house near by. Dr. A. W. Knight, of Maine, resides at the hotel, and will be found an intelligent physician. There is good fishing in the river, and as the county is but sparsely settled, small game is abundant. Horses can be had for $2.00. The basin of the spring is ten feet deep, and 30 feet in diameter; the stream runs about a hundred yards and then empties into the river.
