CHAPTER IV.

 A TRIP THROUGH NORTH FLORIDA.

 IT was the middle of March when Captain Samuel
Fairbanks, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, set
out on an official pilgrimage through the northern sec-
tion of the State, in search of information for the use of
his. bureau. The Captain was peculiarly well adapted for
his official position, and especially to investigate this por-
tion of the State, which had in all its parts become fa-
miliar to him, through a residence of over forty years.
He came originally from central New York, and there
are many other people here from that favorite section of
the Empire State.


 The writer
tain Fairbanks
lightful time, 1
ing traveling c
anecdotes, and
The previously


accepted a cordial invitation to join Cap-
on the proposed trip, and enjoyed a de-


For the Captain was
companion, full of in
reminiscences of the
described iournev


U Si


of the State had given me a fine
wilder and more remote regions,
gave me an opportunity to learn o


a pleasant, entertain-
Iteresting information,
State and the people.
in the other portions
opportunity to see the
and the present trip
,f the older and more


populous sections. Our route lay through the counties of
all the northern and western portions of the State, where,
in the "piping times of peace," the ante-war days, the
true era of Southern prosperity, the planters of Florida
lived and nourished and waxed wealthy. In .those days


I