Kingsley’s Pond, the highest body of water in the State, is the first of a long succession of lakes which, lying between the St. John’s and the railway, have only lately been, as it were, discovered by the Northerner.  It is perfectly circular in form, being precisely two miles across in every direction.  Like all the lakes of Florida, it is of immense depth, and its waters are so transparent that the white sand at the bottom may be seen glistening like stars.  In common with the other waters of this region, it is surrounded by a hard beach of white sand, rising gradually up to a beautifully-wooded slope, being quite free from the marshes which too often render the lakes of Florida unapproachable.

One of the Northern colonies which within the last two years have discovered this delightful region has settled on the shores of Kingsley’s Pond.  Although an infant of only twenty months, the village has made excellent growth and gives promise of a bright future.  Farming is not largely followed, the principal industry of these and the other Northern colonists being orange-culture—­a business to which the climate is wonderfully propitious, the dry, pure air of this district being alike free from excessive summer heats and from the frosts which are occasionally disastrous to groves situated on lower ground in the same latitude.

Though there are few native Floridians in this part of the country, the neighborhood of the lake rejoices in the possession of a Cracker doctress of wondrous powers.  Who but her knows that chapter in the book of Daniel the reading of which stays the flowing of blood, or that other chapter potent to extinguish forest-fires?  One does not need a long residence in the State to learn to appreciate the good-fortune of the Lakers in this particular.

Not far from the village, on the western shore of the pond, lives the one “old settler.”  He met us with the hearty welcome which we had learned almost to look for as a right, and sitting on his front piazza in the shade of his orange trees, gladdening our eyes with the view of his vine-embowered pigpen, we listened to the legend of the pond: 

“Yes, I’ve lived yere four-and-twenty year, but I done kim to Floridy nigh on forty year ago:  walked yere from Georgy to jine the Injun war.  I done found this place a-scoutin’ about, and when I got married I kim yere to settle.  The Yankee folks wants to change the name o’ the pond to Summit Lake and one thing or ’nother, but I allays votes square agin it every time, and allays will.  You see, hit don’t ought to be changed.  I don’t mind the pond part:  they mought call it lake ef they think it sounds better, but Kingsley’s it has to be.  K-i-n-g-l-e-s-l-e-y:  that, I take it, is the prompt way to spell the name of the man as named it, and that’s the name it has to have.  You see hit was this a-way:  Kingsley were a mail-rider—­leastways, express—­in the old Injun wartime, I dunno how long ago.  They was a fort on the pond