TOUR


OF THE STATE.


principally oysters, clams, fish, shark-steaks, turtle-steaks,
etc., with many strange and familiar fruits and vegeta-
bles, all tropical, and fresh in January. Colonel H. T.
Titus is a noted character, once of great notoriety all over
the country, as the fiercest antagonist of old John Brown,
the Harper's Ferry Brown. These two, with their follow-
ers, had many desperate conflicts in the early days of


"bleeding Kansas" history. Colonel Titus is
helpless invalid, and, curiously enough, is an
missing partisan of the political party which
perately fought in its earlier history.*
 Early the next forenoon, Dr. French, Mr.


now old, a
uncompro-
he so des-

Churchill,


and myself, embarked on the trim yacht Mist for a trip
to the sugar-plantation of Mr. Perry E. Wager, situated
on a lagoon on Banana Creek, six miles southeast of Titus-
ville. It was a delightful day, and the scenery was beau-
tiful, with clear waters and myriads of ducks and strange
birds-pelicans; storks, herons, etc.
 About noon we arrived at the plantation, and as Mr.
Wager and the Doctor were old friends, we were all soon
discussing an abundant dinner, after which we walked
over the sugar-cane patch of ten acres. It was located
in a clearing of gigantic oaks, magnolias, etc., interspersed
with wild-orange trees laden with fruit, palmettoes, and
the like, and covered With great vines-a jungle-scene of
the most tropical kind. The soil was jet-black, and evi-
dently of great fertility. Mr. Wager remarked that the
bears and deer gave him much trouble by getting into
his cane, of which they are very fond. A walk through
the cane was something like a scramble through an Illinois
cornfield, only worse, because the cane-stalks were fifteen
to twenty feet tall, large as your wrist, and often curled


and bent,


making


it like climbing


through a


"snake"


* Since this was written Colonel Titus has died.