Easter was close.
        It was Palm Sunday, the 373 rd anniversary of Florida’s discovery by Ponce de Leon.
        I wanted to take advantage of the Holy week to surprise the young Floridian Christians in the display of their faith. I could not stop myself to compare my case to the one of this island‘s inhabitants,


who, having no calendars, were forced to keep fasting for Lent during four days. I only received a long desired French calendar, fifteen days before Easter, and it is true that this calendar taught me at this time only where the church stood in regard of its holidays. So the improvised Lent can be more than a tale escaped from a poet’s comical eloquence.

I ask my loyal Canadian Vanier to accompany me in my expedition. The preparations do not take long. We load our wagon quickly, tacked to two mules, five to six days of food, hay, oats and corn, kitchenware, clothes and blankets.  Ax and saw, nails and hammer, rope and string, to repair the journeys’ accidents; riffles to protect ourselves from hunger and to gather squirrels and young partridges on the way! Oh and we cannot forget our umbrella. It is in fact the help of this very unique friend, which does not show itself by good weather, and serves you on thunder and rainy days, that we need first. A shower followed by two or three, salute our departure with a cheeky way very usual with people who usually live in the clouds.  Luckily sun and fresh air soon repair the damages made by Mrs. Rain.

It was not a usual task to reach San Antonio. The itinerary had been established the night before by the national assembly and from this debate emerged the light, that there was, in all outspokenness, no roads drawn; and that one had to remedy this by ones instinct, ones trapper  intuition, and by ones compass. However, it was said that, for six miles, the path was obvious, only one, and therefore as definite as a guide; but, after this distance, a crossing with four roads was throwing the travelers into too much to choose from. We had to take the second road to the right, the one that looked the most popular and traveled, at the end of which we would find the way to San Antonio, showed by axe strokes marked at regular distances on the pine trees. In that way we would reach Rural-Royal City, the Johnston’s farm, where we would have all the information needed to reach the Catholic colony.

So here we are going through the woods, on the evidence of those valuable indications.

The road unwound its rut ribbons for a six miles length, plus four more miles not anticipated, before reaching the four roads crossing. Every one of them looked less popular, and if we did not know that we had to take the second one to the right, no distinctive marks would have helped us find it. It was in fact a false indication; after walking for half an hour, we had to go back to the crossroad, where our instinct made us correctly choose the road to Rural, our first stop of our ….wood road.

The sun was indicating seven to noon at the big blue dial, when the shadows from the ears of our four mules approached Rural’s Post-office. Well behind Johanetville, Rural! No sawmills, neither Boarding-house, nor trading post, nor accordion. Only the Post-office, which made me jealous. It is true that the establishment was so new, that the first letter which ended up in its box was the one I entrusted to its good care. It never reached its destination.

Having been told by the Post-master that we could find a boarding-house in Royal city, despite the late hour, we bravely covered the three miles which distance us from the capital. Alas! The cooking smell was not carried by the wind’s wing to tell us of Royal City’s closeness, pompous denomination and surely more roaring than the names of Paris, London, New York. The three Royal City inhabitants to whom I was told about my watching are looking at me with pitiful eyes and reply that the cities named before did not start differently. They are right: Lutece, during Cesar era, was a large burg limited to the city. Therefore let’s wait two thousand years, and Royal City will have its thirty nine kilometers enclosure, while Paris will produce cabbages and roots vegetables from a field softened by the plough, fertilized by politics.

The stomach, as easygoing as it may be, not being able to wait for centuries, we decide to let Royal City fulfill its own destiny. In a pine tree forest, from which the seeds will probably contribute to the planting of trees for future boulevards, we establish the first restaurant. Its lifespan was in fact short lived: only our cans of food can still show the place.

Resuming our wandering walk through the forest, attentive to follow our way with the guidelines jaggedly marked on the trees, saddened by the endless succession of large pine trees and small stunted oaks, we reach Johnston’s farm. It is pleasant, this little specimen of Floridian agriculture, all the more so, as it pulls us out of the monotony of the woods. We are breathing the prairies open air, from the fields, we grow lush corn, where the oats are shaking their little green bells; what a conquest over the forest then this vast stretch of cultivated lands! What an enormous work it represents! Mistress Johnston does not hide it; she has been here since childhood (it was not yesterday) and she lived with her father and her uncles in the farm that they cultivated. She is at ease in fact and could pass as a big Beauce’s farmer, if she looked the part. But I do not believe the human body’s transparency was ever closer to frosted glass. When she was passing a herd of cows behind, it looked like we could see horned shadows on her chest.

We toured the farm buildings. Let’s say in that instance that in America one calls a farm any cultivated property. The farmer is therefore either the owner or the farmer as we know it in France, with his tenant farmer in the hand or his request for discount at the mouth. Master Johnston is an owner.

Naturally his farm is built entirely from wood, all but the nails. Therefore one cannot compare its look to the one of our good old French farms, built in the limestone or cement, or half timbering, with their tile roofs covered with moss. No huge hay barn with double doors, only modest sheds; no cow barns nor sheepfolds, only boards, also known as fences, to pen the livestock, which never had a roof over their heads since they grew horns.

From the manure pit, where the ducks are frolicking, where poultry scratch and peck, we do not even talk about.

On the other hand, three hundred profitable orange trees, sugar cane plantations, and fields of sweet potatoes.

Nowhere yet have we come across a farm so well kept. If the Florida’s farming associations ever give out honorific prizes, they will have to crown Master Johnston first, worthy of the country’s farming merit.

Meanwhile, we overwhelm the rich farmer with our honorable mentions. Shaking her hand, we have a weird feeling; it’s like we just squeezed a pack full of pencils.

Leaving the farm land, one mile away, on top of a little butte, a few houses rise up. A group of men and women are gathered around something that we cannot make out very well. Intrigued, we get closer. The father is armed with a large knife, the sons are armed with large knives, the mother and her two tall brassy blonde daughters attend this knives game into the bloody flesh of a cow, already half way cut up. Two little children three and four years old are trying to get their faces at table level, on which the victim’s limbs are scattered. We can only see four little eyes, protected by blond tousled hairs, and four little hands. They look like little doggies, attentive to the knives game, and waiting, ears up and wagging tail, for a piece of meat to fall in their little mouth. A Family gathering, where the father plays the role of grand oracle.  In the victims smoking innards, he is reading the party’s future, in which woman and children will participate later on. These people are chubby, they have a pink complexion, and they live from fresh meat. In their veins circulates a blood which does not take its exclusive food out of the cans of food’s flank. So, they look like big tomcats compared to the skinny Florida cats.

A Big event, the slaughtering of a cow or an ox! Noble entertainment in the forest that this spectacle which serves as opera or extravaganza. One has to remember that these families spread into the forest and do not belong to the rural cast; their ways, at least, are not the ones of our peasants. The women have neither calloused hands, nor the large hips of the villagers and winegrowers who cut grass, make hay, hoe for potatoes, work in the vineyard; these creatures appear frail, city dwellers on vacation for life. They received a definite education which makes them more like ladies of the forest, than peasants. While the men are doing the hard work, without being tired in fact, they cook and clean, never darn, rarely comb, and are always dreaming. For forest ladies, with a monotonous life, without hope, and moreover without aspiration to ever see it change, the merest cut up of an animal let them spend a pleasant time.

This is a great occasion for us to stock up on fresh meat. The filet is sold to us for five francs; it’s worth fourteen in France.

My journeyman tells me, “You saw the making of shingles or wood tiles by machine, now you are going to see them made by hand. Do you see the shinglers cutting up that large cypress; they are cutting blocks at the right length and then split them with an axe. These shingles are more valuable because they are cut in the right thread of the wood fiber, which makes them more resistant to the water and the sun.”

These workers are used to building a more than basic shelter, a shack made of palm tree leaves.

Here is a graceful cottage, overshadowed by palm trees, surrounded by banana trees, near a lake with colorful banks, and a large family, where all the ages are mixed, inhaling the fresh air under the piazza. Everyone is swinging on their rocking-chair. The children are running in the sand, barefoot and with naked legs.

Here we live happy: Could be this exotic manor’s sign. Eager to take our part of this happiness, we ask the hospitality for the night. A little old man consults with a tall old woman, everyone’s grandma. She only says no, the nice woman, and the little old man, looking more confused than usually for an American, who has unpleasant things to tell you, takes the responsibility to tell us how and why it is not possible to grant us our desire. Very politely he shows us the right way which takes us away from the cottage and gets us closer to San-Antonio. He adds that the people around are very welcoming, we will surely meet, along the way, generous hearts who will offer us shelter.

Relieved by these high words, we decide to stay in the first deserted home. Nothing in the world is more Scottish than a house without its owner. For the bystander it does not only open wide its doors and windows, it breaks its hinges and shutters, it even demolishes its roof, its floor and its parquets, giving so many invitations to come in. If one brings hay and blankets with them, then one can make from these houses, golden dreams which are only disturbed by a backache or by a cockroach’s visit.

Soon we can see a church-school, hidden like a hermitage in the deep of the woods. No preacher nor parishioners, neither teacher, nor students. It is a providential shelter to spend the night without being disturbed. We tied our mules around a tree where a very appetizing grass is growing…..for them. We lend to the school benches, which are getting some fresh air, our kitchen utensils, and we lay on the church floor everything we need to sleep.


We had a wonderful supper under this sanctuary’s shadow. We enjoyed a beauty sleep on this sacred floor made of wood!

The next day, fresh and alert, we leave at dawn. This was a charming morning, where Florida’s most beautiful sites are comforting us from the monotony of the first part of the journey.

A graceful cottage, built on the top of a small hill, at the bottom a lake, huge silver blanket, dozes quietly under the watch of the surrounding hills, which bring towards the sky bushy floors of green trees and orange trees. One’s eyes delightfully rest on this beautiful nature; trying to see through an opening, following birds of all colors which are going to drink or hang out around the banks of another lake. The air brings perfume breaths exhaled by the orange tree flowers. This lake is named Mud Lake. For a long time we follow its banks, where the orange groves succeed to the cottages and the small farms. The approach of a colony can be felt, a population center which developing forces can be found through its cultivations three leagues around.

Through the woods, a small cart is dashing off, which the curtains are so white that we could have mistaken it for a traveling hospital bed. After a lot of effort we finally put our hands on it. A butcher comes out of it. He exercises his business by bringing the meat from house to house. Since we do not own a house, he refuses to sell us meat. Luckily, a few gun shots bring a squirrel and two doves into our cooking pot. It is more than enough for three, two Christians and one Christian’s dog.

It is noon, at least for what the sun is proclaiming. To be at ease while eating, shielded from its rays, we take refuge at the edge of a virgin forest where a clear brook whispers. It is a delicious country style meal, after which I go from my dining room to my bathroom. I freshen up before my formal entrance in the town of San Antonio. I trade my flannel shirt for a thin starchy cotton shirt, and the traveler’s jersey for a gentleman’s jacket. After the makeover, I look to the eyes of my companion, another man a little more respectable than before. It is precisely the superficial effect that I was expecting, and that I made to myself.



(Translated by Gataen Gasset, January 2009- Copyright © 2008- 2010 by Jeff Cannon)