cited it, and I lost myself forthwith in revery. "If ever isiand were enchanted," said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?-or do they yield up 5 their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little, their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, 10 growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?” As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes 15 of the bark of the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased,-while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering made its way slowly into the dark20 ness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams her attitude seemed indicative of joy; but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she 25 glided along, and at length rounded the islet and reëntered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay," continued I, musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She was floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death; for I did not fail 30 to see that, as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black." And again the boat appeared, and the Fay; but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty, 35 and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light, and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and 5 at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler, and far fainter, and more indistinct; and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now 10 the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood-and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more. FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A FLORIDA RIVER SIDNEY LANIER.* For a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. The little Ocklawaha (ock lä wä' hä) steamboat Marion had started on her voyage some hours before daylight. She had taken on her passengers the night previous. By seven o'clock on such a 5 May morning as no words could describe we had made twentyfive miles up the St. Johns. At this point the Ocklawaha flows into the St. Johns, one hundred miles above Jacksonville. Presently we abandoned the broad highway of the St. Johns, and turned off to the right into the narrow lane of the Ockla 10 waha. This is the sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses and vines; a lane clean to travel, for there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust 15 which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies. As we advanced up the stream our wee craft seemed to emit her steam in leisurely whiffs, as one puffs one's cigar in a contemplative walk through the forest. Dick, the pole-man, lay asleep on the guards, in great peril of rolling into the river 20 over the three inches between his length and the edge; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not; the white crane, the curlew, the heron, the water-turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly succeeded in persuading themselves after each momentary excitement of our 25 gliding by, that we were really no monster, but only some daydream of a monster. "Look at that snake in the water!" said a gentleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, just come up from his watch. The engineer smiled. "Sir, it is a water-turkey," he said, 30 gently. The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird within the range of ornithology. He is not a bird; he is a neck with such subordinate rights, members, belongings, and heirlooms as seem necessary to that end. He has just enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just enough wings to fly painfully 5 along with his neck, and just big enough legs to keep his neck from dragging on the ground; and his neck is light-colored, while the rest of him is black. When he saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball out of sight, and made us think 10 he was drowned. Presently the tip of his beak appeared, then the length of his neck lay along the surface of the water. In this position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and poked it spirally into the east, the west, the north, and the south, round 15 and round with a violence and energy that made one think in the same breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But what nonsense! All that labor and perilous contortion for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water-snake. Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha, at 20 the right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy reptile of good repute. A little cove of water, dark-green under the overhanging leaves, placid and clear, curves round at the river edge into the flags and 25 lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. This house of the alligator is divided into apartments, little bays which are scalloped out by the lily-pads, according to the winding fancies of their growth. My reptile, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down anywhere; he will find marvellous 30 mosses for his mattress beneath him; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for his coverlet. He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, and his one house-maid-the stream—forever sweeps his cham bers clean. His conservatories there under the glass of that water are ever, without labor, filled with the enchantments of under-water growths. His parks and nis pleasure-grounds are larger than any 5 king's. Upon my saurian's house the winds have no power, the rains are only a new delight to him, and the snows he will never see. Regarding fire, as he does not use it as a slave, so he does not fear it as a tyrant. Thus all the elements are the friends of my alligator's 10 house. While he sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and freshened by the sole, careless act of sleep! Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling as no human house-holder may; it is but a flip of his tail, and lo! he is established in another place as good 15 as the last, ready furnished to his liking. 20 On and on up the river! We find it a river without banks. The swift, deep current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on either side, there is water also a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the bases of a multitude of trees. Along the edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, and stump is wrapped about with a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream are also defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall blue flags, the ineffable lilies sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green thrones, the tiny stars and long rib25 bons of the water-grasses-all these border the river in an infinite variety of adornment. And now, after this day of glory, came a night of glory. Deep down in these shaded lanes it was dark indeed as the night drew on. The stream which had been all day a girdle of beauty, 30 blue or green, now became black band of mystery. But presently a brilliant flame flares out overhead: They have lighted the pine-knots on top of the pilot-house. The fire advances up these dark windings like a brilliant god. The startled birds suddenly flutter into the light and after |