Why didn't the oaks speak, or the magnolias? If they had, shaken their white heads, and raising their trailing garments, had all burst out in some grand anthem, I should only have thought it quite in character; and if personally addressed, it would have seemed entirely a matter of course. I should have replied civilly, begged pardon for intruding in so informal a manner, and backed out as soon as possible; and perhaps the click of a rifle would have produced the same effect. We rode around the little gem, and found the charred timbers where the house stood, and a few orange trees that the Indians had left; but the cool spring was so hid in the high grass, that we were forced back with parched lips to the flat water at Pilatka, which place we reached in time for a late dinner; and just as the evening set in I took passage again for Picolata.
All the boats running on the river were in the government service, and ours at this time was loaded fore and aft with a company of dragoons, bound to Black Creek. As we left the dock, another large boat came out in a pompous manner, and gave us chase; and as the day had been intensely hot, a large line of clouds rolled over the bluff at the same time, probably from the gulf _en route_ to the Atlantic, and moving slowly across the river, gathered their black folds around the pine-tops, shutting all up, river and forest, every thing but our chimneys, in utter darkness. And now began a scene which combined little and great in a manner quite fantastic. Boatmen swearing and yelling to each other as the boats came near collision, and that infernal scream sounding off through the pine barrens like some spirit newly damned; horses prancing and threshing on the bows; men growling at cards, and over head thunder and lightning leading off the storm in a very brilliant and point-blank manner; all which was quite rousing and melo-dramatic. While I was noticing the pilot's manner of steering by flashes, a gentleman came up, whom I recognised as a resident of St. Augustine; and as he had a horse at Picolata, we agreed to go over together that night, as the darkness was rather favorable, and the road being sandy, we could ride rapidly without being heard.