CHAPTER XXII
INTO THE MIRACULOUS SEA
Flying southward by rail from Palm Beach one
immediately leaves behind tropical gardens and
enters semi-arid wastes. The contrast is most
vivid. The traveler feels like Es-Sindibad of old
who thus was transported by magic, or perchance
by an Afreet or the talons of a roc, from king's
gardens to deserts, and anon back again. The
dream of yesterday was of stately palms, of richly
massed foliage plants, of broad-petaled flowers
tiptoeing for a butterfly flight, of softly perfumed
breezes and man and maid in rich garments wandering
joyously among it all. The reality of today
is sand and saw palmetto and dreary wind-bowed,
stunted pines, and dust and desolation.
Only by thus plunging back into bleakness can you realize what man and climate have done, working together, to redeem the wilderness from itself. By and by the arid levels of sand change to equally arid levels of rock. The coral formation which is the backbone of lowest Florida here rises to the surface, showing everywhere in mi-
