never rise higher than fifty or sixty feet; it has no abrupt precipices; the whole formation about it is tertiary
and drift or modern terrace; but its first eighty miles from its mouth are broad as a bay of the sea,
and its narrow upper course above Pilatka, where current supersedes tide, is all one dream of Eden,
- an infinitely tortuous avenue, peopled with myriads of beautiful wild-birds,
roofed by over-hanging branches of oak, magnolia, and cypress,
draped with the moss that tones down those solitudes into a sort of day-moonlight,
and, in the greatest contrast with this, festooned by the lavish clusters of odorous yellow jasmine and many-hued morning-glory,
- the latter making a pillar heavy with triumphal wreaths of every old stump along the plashy brink,
- the former swinging from tree-top to tree-top to knit the whole tropic wilderness into a tangle of emerald chains,
drooping lamps of golden fire, and censers of bewildering fragrance.
fitz hugh
