Here chart No. 58 (or 158) begins. From the Amelia River you go to Kingley’s Creek past two drawbridges. The railroad bridge is out of order and will not open square with the bulkhead. Be careful here, as several accidents have happened and the tide runs strong. Continue across Nassau Sound to Sawpit Creek, at the mouth of which there is a black buoy not laid down on the chart. Keep to the southward of this buoy and run on through Gunnison’s Cut, which you will recognize by two palmetto trees that look like gate-posts at a distance. Down Fort George River to the Sisters Creek and thence to the St. John’s River where you will find a dock--a watermark not to be forgotten on your return trip. There are three charts of the St. John’s, which give it in full from its mouth to Lake Harney; the points to remember are to cross from Hannah Mills Creek to St. John’s Bluff, and thence back again to Clapboard Creek, whence you follow up the north shore, keeping it as far as Dame Point close aboard. Beyond this you can have no trouble as the St. John’s has but one or two shoals where there is less than six feet of water, and it is well marked out with buoys and beacons.
If this description sounds a little tedious to the reader, he will not think it so when he makes the trip. If you want a pilot for any part of the route, one can be had by applying to Captain Coste, of the Lighthouse Service at Charleston; but there are few persons who know what I have herein recorded, and none of those will tell. We have had a long trip--for long as it has been on paper, it has been longer in reality. Two weeks from New York to Beaufort, N. C.; ten days thence to Charleston, and ten more to Jacksonville may be required, unless the traveller is one of those lucky fellows who always have a free wind through life. So he may want to rest, have his clothes washed, dress up in “a boiled shirt” for a change, and revive the fact that he is one of the aristocracy, not an ordinary seaman. He will soon tire of civilization, however, and long for the pleasures of the chase. Then let him ascend any of the tributaries of the St. John’s from San Pablo at its mouth to Juniper Creek, which empties into the southerly end of Lake George. It was on the latter stream that I nearly killed a Limpkin.