178 FLORIDA DAYS.

this silence of souls is profoundly strange .
There is something almost awful in seeing
these motionless beings in their dugout under
the dead cypress. Their eyes are without spe-
ulation, their monotonous voices are pitched i
that key which the wind strikes sometimes in
the pines, and there is as little will or choice
in their tones as in its soulless diapason. Thet
have dim, sad faces, which have yet known nb
sorrow; being sad only as the woods are sad
because there is no capacity for grief.

 The household of a Cracker family dispenses
often with necessities, perhaps because theft
are considered luxuries; while the comfort
which it enjoys might be summed up in one
word, tobacco. The roof of their cabin is apt
to be crumbled and broken; the shingles are
curled and warped under cushions of green
moss, and along the eaves, during the rainy sea-
son, they are almost hidden by the soft growth
of tree-ferns. It is, however, inconceivable that
a leaking roof should be mended while there i
yet a to-morrow in which such work .may b.