This lock at the very lip of the lake keeps the water back to another height of several feet, so that lock after lock, from first to last, had backed up the lake to the height of almost twenty-three feet above tide water.
Never can we forget the view that met our eyes as we were raised to that last level, and looked along the canal to the lake.
The lockhouse and the whole Feeder were completely overhung with tall trees. So close was their interlacing over the canal that the view to the lake was like looking through the barrel of a gun. The air along the dark and narrow sheet was actually green from the light sifting through the foliage. We were in the shadow; it was all shadow to the end, but the end of the view glittered like an immense diamond.
A ball of glorious and unshaded brilliancy lay at the end of the Feeder. A "talisman's glory" it was, set on the low water and framed in the dense cypress.
"What is that?" we asked after a long look of bewildered pleasure.
"Dat's de openin' to de lake," said Abeham. We sat there for an hour. We ate our dinner and smoked a cigar; and the wonder lessened as the strange glory grew. The radiance of the dia-
