to Savannah. Every tree so marked stood like a guide-post; it showed
the traveller which way to go until he came in sight of the next one.

[Illustration: THE "BLAZED" TREES.]

[Footnote 6: Ebenezer (Eb-e-ne'zer).]

[Footnote 7: See I Sam. vii. 12.]


106. Trying to make silk; the queen's American dress.--The settlers
hoped to be able to get large quantities of silk to send to England,
because the mulberry-tree grows wild in Georgia, and its leaves are
the favorite food of the silkworm.[8] At first it seemed as if the
plan would be successful, and General Oglethorpe took over some
Georgia silk as a present to the queen of England. She had a handsome
dress made of it for her birthday; it was the first American silk
dress ever worn by an English queen. But after a while it was found
that silk could not be produced in Georgia as well as it could in
Italy and France, and so in time cotton came to be raised instead.

[Footnote 8: Silkworm: a kind of caterpillar which spins a fine, soft
thread of which silk is made.]


107. Keeping out the Spaniards; Georgia powder at Bunker Hill;
General Oglethorpe in his old age.--The people of Georgia did a good
work in keeping out the Spaniards, who were trying to get possession
of the part of the country north of Florida. Later, like the settlers
in North Carolina and South Carolina, they did their part in helping