While
The Members Of The Party Were Preparing For The
Journey, Colonel Nason Accompanied Me To The
River, Which Was Less Than Three Miles From
Rixford, The Proprietors Of Which Sent The Canoe
After Us On A Wagon Drawn By Mules.
The point
of embarkation was the Lower Mineral Springs,
the property of Judge Bryson.
The Suwanee, which was swollen by some
recent rains in Okefenokee Swamp, was a wild,
dark, turbulent current, which went coursing
through the woods on its tortuous route with
great rapidity. The luxurious foliage of the
river-banks was remarkable. Maples were in
blossom, beech-trees in bloom, while the
buckeye was covered with its heavy festoons of red
flowers. Pines, willows, cotton-wood, two kinds
of hickory, water-oak, live-oak, sweet-gum,
magnolia, the red and white bay-tree, a few
red cedars, and haw-bushes, with many species not
known to me, made up a rich wall of verdure on
either side, as I sped along with a light heart to
Columbus, where my compagnons de voyage
were to meet me. Wood-ducks and egrets, in
small flocks, inhabited the forest. The
limestone banks of the river were not visible, as the
water was eighteen feet above its low summer
level.
I now passed under the railroad bridge which
connects Live Oak with Savannah. After a
steady row of some hours, my progress was
checked by a great boom, stretched across the
river to catch the logs which floated down from
the upper country.
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