MR. JUMAS'S HOUSE 303 CHAPTER XXV. MR. JUMAS'S HOUSE. Whoever goes to Tallahassee will hear of the mysterious smoke of Wakulla. It was first talked of in the early days when St. Mark's was just beginning to be known as a landing-place for Gulf-coast vessels. The sailors saw it, from far out on the water, a tall, slender column, now black like pitch-smoke, now gray like the smoke from burning leaves, and anon white like steam. Its apparent location is in the midst of a swamp, very little above tide- water, wherein grow every conceivable aquatic weed and grass and bush and tree, ---- a jungle a hundred-fold more difficult to penetrate than any in Africa or India. Every newspaper attache who happens to get into Middle Florida feels in duty bound to "write up" this smoky phenomenon, but 304 always at a distance, and mostly from hearsay evidence. He gets upon some high, windy hill near Tallahassee, and, looking south-east, sees, or, what is quite the same, imagines he sees, the lifting jet trembling against the sky, and he writes. He goes and sees Judge White, and writes more. He sees Col. Brevard, or Mayor Lewis, or Capt. Dyke, and adds some interesting particulars. He interviews an aged darky, who remembers " when de fus' house wus built in Tallahassee," and prolongs the account. For the rest he draws upon his ready imagination, or, if his imagination should chance to be slow to move, he whets it with a bottle of scuppernong. The older inhabitants of Tallahassee may, if you are an intimate friend, tell you that once "The New York Herald" sent a man to explore the swamp, and explain the smoke of Wakulla. You will hear that this man got lost in the jungle, and came near dying, and saw wonderful things, and went away a wiser and silenter correspondent than was ever in that region before or since. You may get from Judge White ---- a genial and genuinely interesting 305 gentleman ---- some account of his own effort to reach the foot of that tall smoke-column; how he floundered for miles through mud-slush, water, saw-grass, swamp=weeds, and bay-thickets, millions of mosquitoes, and legions of snakes, till, at last, he reached a tall pine on a tus- sock; how he nailed cleats and climbed, and nailed cleats and climbed, up this tree, for a hundred feet or more, and, with a field-glass, looked at the smoke, still six miles distant; and how his assistants all gave up and deserted him, and how the wild jungle was utterly im- passable any farther, and how he came down from his tree, and floundered and splashed and swam and dragged and fought his way back to terra firma, sick, discouraged, but more than ever impressed with the strangeness of the smoke rising from that awful quagmire. And it is no hoax, no illusion, no creation of a vivid Southern imagination. The smoke is there. It has been noted and commented on for nearly fifty years. It has been seen, almost constantly, fro the north, the east, the south, and the west. Its location has been accurately determined by intelligent observations. It is a 306 permanent and persistent mystery. It is the greatest physical phenomenon in Florida. It is a standing temptation to inquisitive and adventuresome folk, ---- a constant taunt and banter which Nature flaunts in the faces of scientific explorers, and it offers the reward of fame for high achievement to whomsoever will solve its riddle. It was, as has been said, first noticed by sail- ors on the Gulf coast, and by sponge-fishers; afterwards it came to be a source of considera- ble speculation by the early inhabitants of Leon and Wakulla counties. For a time it was be- lieved that it was a sort of beacon or signal made by a band of smugglers or pirates, who had a rendezvous there. Some would explain it by supposing that runaway negroes had a camp in the swamp. During the war it was held to be a colony of deserters from the Con- federate army. Since the war it has been dubbed a volcano. Such, in short, is the his- tory of the Wakulla smoke. Cauthorne, with a native colored guide, a pack-mule, a canvas boat, and, indeed, an outfit exactly suited to his purpose, went forth upon 307 his preliminary survey. It is not a part of this story to follow him step by step on his most extraordinary journey, nor could it be done if it were desired. He has maintained a reticence regarding his adverntures, which nothing has induced him to cast aside. What is known is here given, gained mostly from the statements drawn from a family of negroes living on a tussock deep in the swamp of Wakulla, in whose cabin he lay for nine days sick of malarial fever. It seems that Cauthorne got lost, and that his guide, discovering the fact, stole the mule and deserted, making his way to Tampa, where he sold the animal for thirty-eight dollars, and em- barked on a vessel bound for New Orleans. Thus abandoned, Cauthorne wandered about for days without food, and was at last seized with a fever which prostrated him. He was found in a state of delirium, by a negro girl who was hunting for a lost cow. She ran for her father ; and together they dragged, carried, and rolled Cauthorne to their cabin. He was very sick. They applied such simple remedies as they possessed, and nursed him with that kind- liness and tender care so characteristic of their