FLORIDA DAYS.


muscles and clear eyes, -to cease to be ham-
pered by this miserable body which had played
him false at the very height of life. So he
would go to search for that immortal water of
which every one had heard, but which, with all
the folly of a boy, he had scorned fifty years
ago.
 One pictures to himself, here on the ramparts,
 overlooking the level white beach, the pomp
 and glory of that "morning of Palm Sunday,
 when Ponce de Leon set foot upon these Florida
 shores. The glitter of arms, the blaze of gold
 and scarlet, the cross flashing in the sunshine,
 and the solemn hymn which declared that there
 was yet a Better Country, even an heavenly,
 which the soul desired and with which it would
 be satisfied, so satisfied that it could forget
 Youth and Life itself for entrance through its
 gates of Death.
 Yet there may have been a breath of relief
 when the hymn was over, and the search might
 begin for the fountain of earthly immortality.
 Ponce de Leon's faded eyes may easily have left
the cross, and glanced towards the distant trees,