The railroad agent, a young northerner, I found sleeping soundly in his telegraph office, though the noonday sun was pouring in his windows. He apologized for being caught napping, but declared it was his only amusement in that desolate region of damps, and assured me a man would deteriorate less rapidly by sleeping away his idle hours than by keeping awake to what was going on in the neighboring hamlet. Besides the United States Signal officer, his only intelligent neighbor was a brother of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who had purchased a property, two or three years before, in the once flourishing town of Newport, a few miles up the river. He spoke feelingly of the efforts of the Rev. Charles Beecher to educate his enfranchised negro neighbors; of his inviting them to his house, and laboring for the welfare of their souls. All the patient and Christian efforts of the philanthropist had proved unavailing, and thieving and lying were still much in vogue. It has been proposed by engineers to connect all the interior Gulf- coast watercourses from the Mississippi River at New Orleans to the Suwanee River in Florida. To achieve this end it will be necessary to excavate several canals at points now used as portages. From St. Marks to the Suwanee River there are some rivers which might be used in connecting and perfecting this great interior water-way. I mentioned in my "Voyage of the Paper Canoe," that preliminary surveys, under General Gilmore, had been made for a continuous water way across northern Florida to the Atlantic coast, via the Suwanee and St. Mary's rivers. Detailed surveys are now in progress. Those interested in this enterprise hope to see the produce of the Mississippi valley towed in barges through this continuous water-way from New Orleans to the Atlantic ports of St. Mary's, Fernandina, Savannah, and Charleston. The northwestern as well as the southern states would derive advantage from this extension of the Mississippi system to the Atlantic seaboard, and its execution seems to be considered by many a duty of the national government. There has been little written upon the water-courses of northwestern Florida, but several of the central, southern, and Atlantic coast rivers and lakes have been carefully explored by Mr. Frederick A. Ober, of Massachusetts, a young and enthusiastic naturalist, who, as correspondent of the "Forest and Stream," has published in the columns of that paper a mass of interesting and valuable geographical matter, throwing much light on regions heretofore unfamiliar to the public. CHAPTER XII. FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER ALONG THE COAST.-- SADDLES BREAKS DOWN.-- A REFUGE WITH THE FISHERMEN.-- CAMP IN THE PALM FOREST.-- PARTING WITH SADDLES.-- OUR NEIGHBOR THE ALLIGATOR.-- DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE CROCODILE IN AMERICA.- - THE DEVIL'S WOOD-PILE.-- DEADMAN'S BAY.-- BOWLEGS POINT.-- THE COAST SURVEY CAMP.-- A DAY ABOARD THE "READY."-- THE SUWANEE RIVER.-- THE END.