We might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our course to dry land.  By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at length reached the Major’s hotel, hungry and tired.  Here we found our embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor.

Our landlord appeared to be “dead broke,” but finally persuaded the reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with “I.O.U.’s” instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast.  We soon found that our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business on a one dollar capital.  He was building two railroads, running a steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with not a dollar in his pocket.

[Illustration:  Flight of the Governor and Staff.]

The next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor.  The crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated machinery broke down every few minutes, and the Major had a fierce quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-class fare and refused to take second-class quarters, to which all colored folks were forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a bloody race battle was only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed.

At length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back at a snail’s pace to T——.  At the landing, we boarded a dilapidated street car drawn by mules, for the hotel.

Soon—­crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified governor,—­stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his head,—­into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate his head from the mud.  We rescued him and staff with difficulty from the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats.

Finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from Jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, with furious oaths and unclassical imprecations.  In some way, the embarrassed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters struck for their pay, and “razors were flying in the air.”  The furious landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made desperate efforts to look cheerful and “trip the light fantastic toe.”  All earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving multitude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host.

Almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies.