CHAPTER XXIII.....327

Middle Florida and South Georgia--Jealousy between Middle, and East Florida--Good landed titles in Middle Florida--Disappointment the result of overestimation--No spot with every thing desirable--Diseased people tinctured with a sullen melancholy--Lake City--Derivation of the name--The citizens--Style of architecture adapted to the climate--Products--Atmosphere for asthmatics--Monticello--Its people--Former wealth evidenced by the numerous freedmen--Good hotel here--The festive frogs: great variety, some with loud-sounding voices--The "pretty frog" that went to England--The singing-wasp--Tallahassee, where De Soto spends his first winter, 1539--The Spanish soldiers and their armor--Town incorporated, 1825--Corner-stone of the capitol laid, 1826--Situation of Tallahassee--Governor Reed's message, 1840--Blood-hounds and leash-men from Cuba--Two Indians caught by them--Bounties on heads--Indian scare--Only a goat--Indians attack wagons, relieving negroes of their clothing--Former wealth and culture in Tallahassee--Colonel Murat and his mother come to America--Visit the Catholic Bishop, but not in regal style--The neighbors are disappointed in a king's son--Birthplace, home, and early associations of the gifted authoress, Mrs. Mary E. Bryan--Wakulla Spring, with a beautiful description by Bartram--Chattahoochee--State penitentiary--Montgomery and Eufaula route to Florida--Town of Quincy--Mountain-streams with a musical cadence--Cuban tobacco and scuppernong grapes grown here--Stage communication between Quincy and Bainbridge--Cherokee rose-hedges--Bainbridge--Its decline on account of railway communication--Thomasville--Mitchell House--Gulf House--Embowered dwellings--Brisk trade--Newspapers--Female college--Churches--Former wealth of Thomas county--Colored politicians prefer speaking by proxy--No water communication from Thomasville--Wire grass country--Quitman--Home-like hotels--Cotton factory--Valdosta--Pine-trees--Plenty to eat--Valdosta editor--Crowds on public days--Trip on the Gulf road--The light-wood fires an epitome of the Arabian Nights' Entertainment.