FLORIDA.


to give us
evening, n
watching
very outsc
It is gran
awe-inspir
and wild.


a night view of the river, and we all spent the
eight, and morning on deck, deeply interested in
the scenery, which begins its strangeness at the
,t, and is worth the seeing every rod of the route.
d, impressive, strange, tropical-now gloomy and


ing,
Th


now fairy-like and charming, and again
.e great forest-trees of that region are


immense size, oaks, gums, magnolias,


cypress, etc.,


spersed with the more tropical palmetto and palm, all
and interlocked with a perfect network of immense
too tangled for description, brilliant with vegetat
leaves of all colors, flowers of all shapes, sizes, and
and loaded with great clusters of mosses. The mos
spicuous and abundant of these mosses is the Spanish
with its delicate, silvery-gray shade; but clusters o
popular, pretty mistletoe, with its bright berries, ar


weird
all of
inter-
laden
vines,
;ion-
hues,
t con-
moss,
of the
e also


seen, and occasional masses of that handsomest of all mosses,
the famous woman's-hair. This strange air-growth has a
rich, glistening, golden color, is long and fibrous in text-
ure, wavy, and closely resembling a mass of blonde hair.
It is a rare moss, and when seen hanging from some bough
gives one the impression that three or four bushels of gold-
en locks have been shorn from fair heads and hung thereon
for adornment.
 The scene is enlivened with birds of many kinds, nearly
all strange to the Northern eye-snowy-white storks, cranes,
herons, water-turkeys, hell-divers, curlews, etc.-many hav-
ing brilliant plumage. The waters teem with large turtles
and alligators, that quickly disappear as they catch a
glimpse of the puffing, chuffing little steamer as it comes
around a bend.
 The stream is generally very narrow ; in many places,
often for quite a long distance, the branches of the great
trees interlock across the channel, forming vast arched
avenues, paved with a floor of intensely black water, roofed


,