BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, (LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 1873. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. Boston: Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, & Co....

Y ES, here he comes again! Look at him! Whose dog is he? We are sitting around the little deck-house of the Savannah steamer, in that languid state of endurance which befalls voyagers, when, though the sky is clear, and the heavens blue, and the sea calm as a looking-glass, there is yet that gentle, treacherous, sliding rise and fall, denominated a ground-swell. Reader, do you remember it? Of all deceitful demons of the deep, this same smooth, slippery, cheating ground-swell is the most diabolic

Mandarin, Fla. , Jan. 24, 1872. Y ES, it is done. The winter is over and past, and "the time of the singing of birds is come." They are at it beak and claw,—the red-birds, and the cat-birds, and the chattering jays, and the twittering sparrows, busy and funny and bright. Down in the swamp-land fronting our cottage, four calla-lily buds are just unfolding themselves; and in the little garden-plat at one side stand rose-geraniums and camellias, white and pink, just unfolding. Right opposite to the

I T is not to be denied that full half of the tourists and travellers that come to Florida return intensely disappointed, and even disgusted. Why? Evidently because Florida, like a piece of embroidery, has two sides to it,—one side all tag-rag and thrums, without order or position; and the other side showing flowers and arabesques and brilliant coloring. Both these sides exist. Both are undeniable, undisputed facts, not only in the case of Florida, but of every place and thing under the sun. The

Mandarin, Fla ., Feb. 13, 1872. Y ES, the girls! Let me see: who are they? I mean you , Nellie, and Mary, and Emily, and Charlotte, and Gracie, and Susie, and Carry, and Kitty, and you of every pretty name, my charming little Pussy Willow friends! Dear souls all, I bless your bright eyes, and fancy you about me as a sort of inspiration to my writing. I could wish you were every one here. Don't you wish that "The Arabian Nights" were true? and that there were really little square bits of enchante

Monday , Feb. 26, 1872. D EAR girls, wouldn't you like to get into that little white yacht that lies dancing and courtesying on the blue waters of the St. John's this pleasant Monday morning? It is a day of days. Spring has come down with all her smiles and roses in one hour. The great blue sheet of water shimmers and glitters like so much liquid lapis lazuli ; and now the word comes in from our neighbor, the owner of the pleasure-yacht, "Wouldn't you like to go sailing?" Of course we should! Th

Mandarin, Fla. , Feb. 29, 1872. T HIS twenty-ninth day of February is a day made on purpose for a fishing-party. A day that comes only once in four years certainly ought to be good for something; and this is as good a day for picnicking up Julington as if it had been bespoken four years ahead. A bright sun, a blue sky, a fresh, strong breeze upon the water,—these are Nature's contributions. Art contributes two trim little white yachts, "The Nelly" and "The Bessie," and three row-boats. Down we a

Mandarin, Fla. , March 6, 1872. M AGNOLIA is a name suggestive of beauty; and, for once, the name does not belie the fact. The boarding-house there is about the pleasantest winter resort in Florida. We have been passing a day and night there as guest of some friends, and find a company of about seventy people enjoying themselves after the usual fashions of summer watering-places. The house is situated on a little eminence, and commands a fine sweep of view both up and down the river. In the usua

Mandarin, Fla. , March 14, 1872. T HEY talk about Florida being the land of flowers: I'm sure I don't see where the flowers are." The speaker was a trim young lady, with pretty, high-heeled boots, attired in all those charming mysteries behind and before, and up and down, that make the daughter of Eve look like some bright, strange, tropical bird. She had come to see Florida; that is, to take board at the St. James. She had provided herself with half a dozen different palmetto-hats, an orange-wo

W E find an aggrieved feeling in the minds of the Floridian public in view of a letter in "The Independent," by Dr. ——, headed as above; and we have been urgently requested to say something on the other view of the question. Little did we suppose when we met our good friend at Magnolia, apparently in the height of spirits, the life of the establishment, and head promoter of all sorts of hilarity, that, under all this delightful cheerfulness, he was contending with such dreary experiences as his

March 25, 1872. A FTER a cold, damp, rainy week, we have suddenly had dropped upon us a balmy, warm, summer day,—thermometer at eighty; and every thing out of doors growing so fast, that you may see and hear it grow. The swampy belt of land in front of the house is now bursting forth in clouds of blue iris of every shade, from the palest and faintest to the most vivid lapis-lazuli tint. The wild-rose-bushes there are covered with buds; and the cypress-trees are lovely with their vivid little fea

April 14. O UR Palmetto correspondence increases daily. Our mail comes only twice a week; and, as the result of the two last mails, we find fifteen letters, propounding various inquiries about Florida. Now, it would be a most delightful thing to be on sociable terms with all the world; and we would be glad to reply to each one of these letters. Many of them are sprightly and amusing: all are written in good faith, containing most natural and rational inquiries. But, let any one attempt the task

April 20. I T is vain to propose and announce subjects from week to week. One must write what one is thinking of. When the mind is full of one thing, why go about to write on another? The past week we have been engrossed by magnolias. On Monday, our friend D——, armed and equipped with scaling-ladders, ascended the glistening battlements of the great forest palaces fronting his cottage, and bore thence the white princesses, just bursting into bud, and brought them down to us. Forthwith all else w

May 2. W E have before us a neat little pile of what we call "Palmetto letters,"—responses to our papers from all States in the Union. Our knowledge of geography has really been quite brightened by the effort to find out where all our correspondents are living. Nothing could more mark the exceptional severity of the recent winter than the bursts of enthusiasm with which the tidings of flowers and open-air freedom in Florida have come to those struggling through snow-drifts and hail-storms in the

A few years ago, three brothers, farmers, from Vermont, exhausted by the long, hard winters there, came to Florida to try an experiment. They bought two hundred and seventy-five acres in the vicinity of Mandarin at one dollar per acre. It was pine-land, that had been cut over twice for timber, and was now considered of no further value by its possessor, who threw it into the hands of a land-agent to make what he could of it. It was the very cheapest kind of Florida land. Of this land they cleare

Mandarin , May 28, 1872. T HE month of May in Florida corresponds to July and August at the north. Strawberries, early peaches, blackberries, huckleberries, blueberries, and two species of wild plums, are the fruits of this month, and make us forget to want the departing oranges. Still, however, some of these cling to the bough; and it is astonishing how juicy and refreshing they still are. The blueberries are larger and sweeter, and less given to hard seeds, than any we have ever tasted. In the

Mandarin , May 30, 1872. T HE thermometer with us, during the third week in May, rose to ninety-two in the shade; and as we had received an invitation from a friend to visit St. Augustine, which is the Newport of Florida, we thought it a good time to go seaward. So on a pleasant morning we embarked on the handsome boat "Florence," which has taken so many up the river, and thus secured all the breeze that was to be had. "The Florence" is used expressly for a river pleasure-boat, plying every day

Mandarin , May 14, 1872. O UR neighbor over the way is not, to be sure, quite so near or so observable as if one lived on Fifth Avenue or Broadway. Between us and his cottage lie five good miles of molten silver in the shape of the St. John's River, outspread this morning in all its quivering sheen, glancing, dimpling, and sparkling, dotted with sail-boats, and occasionally ploughed by steamboats gliding like white swans back and forth across the distance. Far over on the other side, where the w

T HE St. John's is the grand water-highway through some of the most beautiful portions of Florida; and tourists, safely seated at ease on the decks of steamers, can penetrate into the mysteries and wonders of unbroken tropical forests. During the "season," boats continually run from Jacksonville to Enterprise, and back again; the round trip being made for a moderate sum, and giving, in a very easy and comparatively inexpensive manner, as much of the peculiar scenery as mere tourists care to see.

T HE little wharf at Mandarin is a tiny abutment into the great blue sea of the St. John's waters, five miles in width. The opposite shores gleam out blue in the vanishing distance; and the small wharf is built so far out, that one feels there as in a boat at sea. Here, trundled down on the truck along a descending tram-way, come the goods which at this point await shipment on some of the many steamboats which ply back and forth upon the river; and here are landed by almost every steamer goods a

W HO shall do the work for us? is the inquiry in this new State, where there are marshes to be drained, forests to be cut down, palmetto-plains to be grubbed up, and all under the torrid heats of a tropical sun. "Chinese," say some; "Swedes," say others; "Germans," others. But let us look at the facts before our face and eyes. The thermometer, for these three days past, has risen over ninety every day. No white man that we know of dares stay in the fields later than ten o'clock: then he retires