CHAPTER III
ALONG THE RIVER MARGIN
One of the sweetest of Southern trees at this
time of the year is the loquat, which is not by
right of birth a Southern tree at all, being transplanted
from Japan. However the loquats have
been here long enough to be naturalized and seem
Southern with that extra fillip of fervor which
marks, often, the adopted citizen. Their odor
was the first to greet me on landing at the long
dock at Orange Park, floating on the amorous
air with sure suggestion of paradise just beyond.
At the time I thought it just the "spicy tropic
smell" that always comes off shore to greet one
in low latitudes, whether on the road to Mandalay
or Trinidad or Honolulu. Usually it is born
of Southern pines whose resinous distillation
bears on its rough shoulders breath of jasmine,
tuberose or such other climber or bulb bearer as
happens to be in bloom.
Off shore in the West Indies the froth of the brine seems to play ball with these odors, tossing them on the trade winds leagues to leeward, till
