And though the days of faith be dead, men look for that Phantom-Fountain still. Yearly, from the gray cities of wintry lands thousands hasten to the eternal summer of this perfumed place, to find new life, new strength--to seek rejuvenescence in the balm of the undying groves, in the purity of rock-born springs, in the elixir-breath of this tropical Nature, herself eternally young with the luminous youth of the gods. And multitudes pass away again to duller lands, to darker skies, rejuvenated indeed,--the beauty with rose-bloom brightened, the toiler with force renewed,--feeling they have left behind them here something of their hearts, something of their souls, caught like Spanish moss on the spiked leaves of the palms, on the outstretched arms of the cedars. Why River-worship should have held so large a place in the ancient religions of the world, I thought I could more fully comprehend on that aureate afternoon,--while our white steamer clove her way toward a long succession of purple promontories that changed to green at our approach, and the city was fading away behind us in smoke of gold. Blue miles of water to right and left; the azure enormity ever broadening and brightening before. Viewing the majesty of the flood, the immortal beauty of the domed forests crowning its banks, the day-magic of colors shifting and interblending through leagues of light, a sense of inexpressible reverence fills the mind of the observer,--a sense of the divinity of Nature, the holiness of beauty. These are the visions we must call celestial; this is the loveliness that is sacred, that is infinite,--the poetry of heaven. Through the splendor of blue there seemed to float to my memory as sounds float to the ear, some verses of an ancient Indian hymn, whereof the authorship has been ascribed even to the Spirit of the Universe: '_I am the sweetness of waters, the light of moon and sun, the perfume of earth, the splendor of fire.... I am the Soul in all that lives;--Time-without-end am I, and the life of things to be, the Spirit celestial and supreme_, MOST ANCIENT AND MOST EXCELLENT OF POETS.' The sun dropped through a lake of orange light, and there were lilac tints in the sky, and ghostly greens. Then the great indigo darkness came; stars sparkled out; the boat chanted her steam-song, slackened her speed before a yellow glimmering of lamps, and halted at the wharves of Palatka. Here we bade her farewell; too huge a craft she was for the pilgrimage we wished to make to the mysterious fountain. Slender and light the boat must be that makes the journey thither,--a voyage upon stranger waters than these: no giant stream like the St. Johns, but a dim river with an Indian name, a narrow river undulating through the forest like some slow serpent unrolling its hundred coils of green. And, as a greater serpent devours a lesser one, so the writhing Ocklawaha swallows the shining current that flows from the Silver Spring.