e unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon."

Low-rolling ridges of gravel, clothed with pine and oak, came down
along the river. The bank on the right rose higher, and, at a sharp
angle in the stream, lifted itself into a bluff-like point. Opposite
was the serpentine course of the Dead River, coiling through an open
marsh-meadow. Below the junction of the two streams our own river
flowed swiftly, through a straight reach, to the mouth of the still
lagoon where Mare Run came in.

Here we made our second camp, on the point, among the pines and the
hollies. For here, at last, we were in the heart of the region of
laurels, which we had come to see. All along the river we had found
some of them, just beginning to open their flowers, here and there. But
above and below the mouth of the Dead River the banks and ridges, under
the high shadow of the pines, were crowded with shining clumps of the
_Kalmia latifolia_, and something in the soil and exposure, or perhaps
even the single day of warm sunshine that had passed since we began our
voyage, had brought them already into the young flood of bloom.

I have seen the flame azaleas at their bright hour of consummation in
the hill country of central Georgia--lakes of tranquil and splendid
fire spreading far away through the rough-barked colonnades of the
pineries. I have seen the thickets of great rhododendrons on the
mountains of Pennsylvania in coronation week, when the magic of June
covered their rich robes of darkest green with countless sceptres,
crowns, and globes of white bloom divinely tinged with rose: superb,
opulent, imperial flowers. I have seen the Magnolia Gardens near
Charleston when their Arabian Nights' dream of colour was unfolding
beneath the dark cypresses and moss-bannered live-oaks. I have seen the
tulip and hyacinth beds of Holland rolled like a gorgeous carpet on the
meadows beneath the feet of Spring; and the royal gardens of Kew in the
month when the rose is queen of all the flowers; but never have I seen
an efflorescence more lovely, more satisfying to the eye, than that of
the high laurel along the shores of the unknown little river in South
Jersey.

Cool, pure, and virginal in their beauty, the innumerable clusters of
pink and white blossoms thronged the avenues of the pine woods, and
ranged themselves along the hillsides and sloping banks, and trooped
down by cape and promontory to reflect their young loveliness in the
flowing stream. I