We turned aside from our route to visit Whitesville, the beautiful old home of Judge B–. It is a noble great mansion, with broad double doors opening from every side of a wide hall, and standing in the midst of a wild garden luxuriant with flowers and shrubs and vines, and with a magnificent ivy climbing to the top of a tall blasted tree at the gate. "I came to this place from New Haven in '29," its owner told us—"sailed from New York to Darien, Georgia, in a sloop, and from there in a sail-boat to this very spot. I prospected all about: bought a little pony, and rode him—well, five thousand miles after I began to keep count. Finally, I came back and settled here."
"Were you never troubled by Indians?" we asked.
"Well, they put a fort here in the Indian war, the government did—right here, where you see the china trees." It was a beautiful green slope beside the house, with five great pride-of-Indias in a row and a glimpse of the creek through the thickets at the foot. "There never was any engagement here, though. The Indians had a camp over there at K–'s, where you came from, but they all went away to the Nation after a while."
"Did you stay here through the civil war?"
"Oh yes. I never took any part in the troubles, but the folks all suspected and watched me. They knew I was a Union man. One day a Federal regiment came along and wanted to buy corn and fodder. The men drew up on the green, and the colonel rode up to the door. 'Colonel,' says I, 'I can't sell you anything, but I believe the keys are in the corn-barn and stable doors: I can't hinder your taking anything by force.' He understood, and took pretty well what he wanted. Afterward he came and urged me to take a voucher, but I wouldn't do that. By and by the Confederates came around and accused me of selling to the Federals, but they couldn't prove anything against me."
"There used to be Confederate head-quarters up there at K–'s?" we asked.
"Oh yes, and the Federals had it too. General Birney was there for a while. One day, just after he came, a lot of 'em came over here. One of my boys was lying very sick in that front chamber just then—the one you know, the county clerk. Well, an orderly rode up to the door and called out, 'Here, you damned old rebel, the general wants you.'—'I don't answer to that name,' said I.—'You don't?'—'No, I don't.'—'What! ain't you a rebel?'—' I don't answer to that name,' said I.—'Well, consider yourself my prisoner,' says he; so I walked up there with him. Judge Price was at head-quarters just then, and he knew me well. It seems that the general had heard that I kept a regular rebel commissariat, sending stores to them secretly. Well, when the judge had told him who I was, the general wrote me a pass at once, and then asked, 'Is there anything I can do for you?'—'General,' said I, 'my son lies very sick. I should like to see the last of him, and beg to be permitted to retire.'—'Is that so?' said the general. 'Would you like me to send you a doctor?' I accepted, and he sent me two. He came up afterward, and found that his men had torn down the fences, broken open the store and dragged out goods, set the oil and molasses running, and done great damage—about four thousand dollars' worth, we estimated. You see, they thought it was a rebel commissariat. When he came into the house he asked my wife if she could give him supper. 'General,' said she, 'you have taken away my cooks: if you will send for your own, I shall be very happy to get supper for you.' He did so, and spent the night here, sleeping in one of the chambers while his officers lay all over the piazzas. Next day they all rode away, quite satisfied, I guess. There were several skirmishes about here afterward, and we have some pieces of bombs in the house now that fell in the yard."
The judge pressed us to stay and dine, but we had arranged for a gypsy dinner in the woods and were anxious to push on. Push on! How Barney would smile could he hear the word! He never did anything half so energetic as to push: he did not even pull.
So we bade farewell to our genial host and started westwardly again. We were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State, and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes. All through the week which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during the fifteen-mile drive between Black Creek and Kingsley's Pond.
Kingsley's Pond, the highest body of water in the State, is the first of a long succession of lakes which, lying between the St. John's and the railway, have only lately been, as it were, discovered by the Northerner. It is perfectly circular in form, being precisely two miles across in every direction. Like all the lakes of Florida, it is of immense depth, and its waters are so transparent that the white sand at the bottom may be seen glistening like stars. In common with the other waters of this region, it is surrounded by a hard beach of white sand, rising gradually up to a beautifully-wooded slope, being quite free from the marshes which too often render the lakes of Florida unapproachable.
One of the Northern colonies which within the last two years have discovered this delightful region has settled on the shores of Kingsley's Pond. Although an infant of only twenty months, the village has made excellent growth and gives promise of a bright future. Farming is not largely followed, the principal industry of these and the other Northern colonists being orange-culture—a business to which the climate is wonderfully propitious, the dry, pure air of this district being alike free from excessive summer heats and from the frosts which are occasionally disastrous to groves situated on lower ground in the same latitude.
Though there are few native Floridians in this part of the country, the neighborhood of the lake rejoices in the possession of a Cracker doctress of wondrous powers. Who but her knows that chapter in the book of Daniel the reading of which stays the flowing of blood, or that other chapter potent to extinguish forest-fires? One does not need a long residence in the State to learn to appreciate the good-fortune of the Lakers in this particular.
Not far from the village, on the western shore of the pond, lives the one "old settler." He met us with the hearty welcome which we had learned almost to look for as a right, and sitting on his front piazza in the shade of his orange trees, gladdening our eyes with the view of his vine-embowered pigpen, we listened to the legend of the pond:
"Yes, I've lived yere four-and-twenty year, but I done kim to Floridy nigh on forty year ago: walked yere from Georgy to jine the Injun war. I done found this place a-scoutin' about, and when I got married I kim yere to settle. The Yankee folks wants to change the name o' the pond to Summit Lake and one thing or 'nother, but I allays votes square agin it every time, and allays will. You see, hit don't ought to be changed. I don't mind the pond part: they mought call it lake ef they think it sounds better, but Kingsley's it has to be. K-i-n-g-l-e-s-l-e-y: that, I take it, is the prompt way to spell the name of the man as named it, and that's the name it has to have. You see hit was this a-way: Kingsley were a mail-rider—leastways, express—in the old Injun wartime, I dunno how long ago. They was a fort on the pond them days, over on the south side. Wal, Kingsley were a-comin' down toward the fort from the no'th when he thort he see an Injun. He looked behind, and, sure enough, there they was, a-closin' in on him. He looked ahead agin. Shore's you're bo'hn there was a double row on 'em—better'n a hunderd—on all two sides of the trail. He hadn't a minit to study, and jist one thing to do, and he done hit. He jist clapped spurs to his critter and made for the pond. He knowed what they wanted of him"—confidentially and solemnly: "it were their intention to ketch him and scalp him alive, you know. Wal, they follered him to the pond, a-whoopin' and a-yellin' all the way, makin' shore on him. When he got to the pond he rid right in, the Injuns a'ter him, but his critter soon began to gin out. When he see that he jist gethered up his kit and jumped into the water, and swum for dear life. Two mile good that feller swum, and saved his kit and musket. The Injuns got his critter, but you never see nothin' so mad as they was to see him git off that a-way. The soldiers at the fort was a-watchin' all the time. They run down to meet him: they see he looked kinder foolish as he swum in, and as soon as he struck the shore he jist flung himself on the sand, and laid for half an hour athout openin' his eyes or speakin'. Then he done riz right up and toted his kit to the commander, and axed to hev the pond named a'ter him. The commander said it mought be so, and so hit was; and so it has to be, I says, and allays will."
It would be impossible to detail the exquisite and varied beauty of the way between Kingsley's Pond and Ekoniah Scrub. Through the fair primeval forest we wandered, following the old