The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1870-05-06

This is an old yet still strange ant
wild country, that has been settled fol
three hundred years, and is not yet in.
habited-a land of shifting sand and O
deep mud-a land of noble rivers that
rise in swamps and consist merely o
chains and shallow lakes, some O
twenty miles long and twelve mile:
across, and only twelve feet deep-O
wide, sandy plains covered with sol
emn-sOunding pines-ofspOts of barren
I that nothing can he made to grow up
on them, and yet with a soil so fertile
that "if you tickle it with q hoe it will
laugh with an abundant harvest" OF
sugar, cotton, rice and fruit-a land OF
oranges, lemons, pOmegranates, pine
| apples, figs and bananas, whose rivers
TEEN with fish, its forests with game,
and its very air with fowl; where eve
rytbing will grow except wheat and
apples; where everything can be found
except ice yet where the people, with
a productive soil, q mild climate and
bountifuI nature, atf0rding every table
luxury, live on corn grits, sweet pota-
toes and molasses; where many men
possessing forty thousand head Of cattle
never saw y glass of milk in their lives,
using only the imported article when
used at all where the very effort to
milk cow would probably scare her
to death, as we'll as frighten a whole
neighbOrhood by the unheard-Of phe-
nomenOn; where cabbage grows on
the tops of trees, and you may dig
bread out of the ground; where, below
the frost line, the castor-oil plant be-
comes large tree of several years
growth, and pumpkin or bean vine
will take root from its trailing branch
es, and thus spread and live year after
year; where cattle do not know what
hay is, and refuse it when Offered. so
that the purchase of a yoke Of oxen j.
not considered valid if the animal will
not cat in stable; and where in the
mild winter, when the land grass is
dried up, and horses and cattle may be
seen wading aud swimming in the ponds
and streams, plunging their heads deep
under the surface to bite the water
grasses and moss; where many lakes
have holes in the bottom and under
ground communication, 80 that they
will sometimes shrink away to a mere
cupful, leaving many square miles of
surface uncovered, and then again fill
up from below and spread out over their
former area where some of them have
outlets i'm the ocean far from shore,
bursting up q perpetual spring of fresh
water in the very midst of the briny
saltness of the sea; where in times of
low water, during long, exhaustive
dry season, men have gone underground
in one of these subterranean rivers
from lake to lake distance of eight
miles; where the ground will some
times sink and the cavity fill with wa
ter, until tall trees, that had stood and
sunk upright, will have their tOpmOst
branches deeply covered; where rivers
will disappear in the earth and rise
again, thus forming natural bridges,
some of them a mile in breadth; where |
instead of spring, summer, autumn,
and winter, there are two seasons only !
Eight months summer and four |
months warm weather; where the Win |
ter is the dry season, and the summer |
almost daily rain; where in order to |
take walk you first wade through a
light sand ankle-deep, and then get in
to a mud-puddle, and some of these |
cover q whole county; |
where no clay is found fit for brick
and people build houses with
out chimneys; where agues would pre-
vail if the people would take trouble to
shake; where large orange tree will
bear seven thousand oranges-Icayes,
buds, blossoms, half.grown and full
grown fruit all at Once-and every
feet square of sand will
sustain such a tree; where in many
parts cold weather is an impOssibility
and perpetual verdure reigns; where the
everglades are found, covering many
a,ge counties with water from one to
six feet deep, with bottom mud-cov- :
,red, yet underneath solid and firm,
rom which grasses grow up to the sur
ace, II sea of green, and with islands
arge and small scattered over the sur
ace, covered with live-Oaks and dense
where alligstors, or gators,
Is they are called i'm Florida parlancc,
,Ossess undOubtcd aboriginal rights of
and mosquitoes pay COLI
tant visits, and are intrusive and even
in their attention to stran-
,ers. All these and more MAY DC met
With i'm F'lorida.-J. y. Ljtttc, IN Lip
,WcoH'S MUgo-inc.