The river at Rockledge is nearly six miles wide and furnishes the finest sea for sailing, for the salt-air is present, and the dangers of heavy billows are absent. Across this expanse lies a broad strip of land which is divided by another lagoon called Banana River, along which is a charming vista of wood that has been named by some admirer Fairyland. This strip of forest-growth is beautiful enough to justify the name, and wandering through groves of oranges, palms, magnolias and paw-paws, on shell-walks of snowy whiteness, fancy pictures a troop of dryads picnicking among the trees, and drinking nectar from flaming begonia flowers that sprinkle the woods with scarlet. At the lower end of Fairyland is a natural park in which gnarled oaks spread their giant shadows over a lawn of grasses, and on the margin is a grove of pine- apples, the fragrance of which almost stifles the odor from the orange- blossoms. A single cottage is the only habitation in this poetic retreat, before the door of which are lofty paw-paws waving their feathery crests, and a gigantic rubber, or banyan tree, whose branches woo the soil and have taken root therein. Only one other specimen of this remarkable tree, of equal size, is found in the United States, and it, too, is a native of Florida, being one of the chief curiosities of Key West. There are other species that exhibit a disposition to fix the points of their drooping branches in the ground, but it is peculiar to the banyan to send out shoots from its main stems, which, instead of growing upward, point straight down, and even before reaching the ground the ends put out root-tendrils, which strike into the soil and firmly attach themselves as soon as they reach the earth. As the boat proceeds southward from Rockledge the way grows in interest, for we soon reach what may be called “the region of water-fowls.” Ducks, coots, water- hens, absolutely cover the river’s surface, while pelicans increase in number until we reach Pelican Island, where they swarm by thousands. The rising of water-fowl before the boat is a wondrous sight, and the beating of their wings on the water produces a sound like a heavy fall of hail on a dry clap-board roof; there are positively millions, and the commotion which they create is almost pandemonium. Another remarkable sight which we witnessed was a school of porpoises that had strayed into the lagoon (for they are not commonly found there) which, being frightened by the boat, made a retreat across the river in such precipitation that the shallow water was beaten into foam, leaving a streak of white behind them that marked their course some time after. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: