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Hunting in Florida in 1874. 



THOUGH a native of Massachusetts, it was ray fortune, 
at tlie age of thirteen, to enjoy squirrel, oppossum 
and fox liunting in interior Virginia; at nineteen, deer, 
coon and bear chasing in soutli western Georgia; at twenty- 
five, plover, duck and hawk shooting in southeastern New 
England; at forty, a sight of wild chamois in the high 
Alps, and at fifty-five, a camp Ufe of fifty consecutive 
days in the miasmatic swamps and everglades around 
Lake Okechobee in southern Florida. The object of this 
narrative is to give a detailed account of this latter expe- 
rience in the most forbidding of all wild regions: but to 
the naturalist a perfect elytium. 

The mention of Florida suggests the invalid, but it 
should not in the case of myself or my three compan ons, 
the one an expe ieiiced collector of forty, inured to all the 
hardships of camp life, and recognized by naturalists as 
Doctor P., and the other two, youths of eighteen, in- 
experienced, but enthusiastic, whom we will call Erwin 
and Fred. 

For hunting-dress outfit, I was provided with a suit of 
sail cloth, colored yellowish brown or butternut, to re- 
semble dead leaves, the sack coat prepared with ten 
pockets, besides one, full size of the skirt, for large speci- 
mens, the pants with six pockets, two blue flannel shirts, 
with inside pockets for watch, money and photographs, 
all wrapped in oil sUk bags (carefully keeping paper 
money from contact with the oil sUk surface, by first en- 
closing it in an envelope), military boots and brogans, and 
four pair of thick woolen socks. Any sort of vest is an 
incumberance on hunting excursions. A huswife well 
provided with sewing materials, extra buttons, pieces of 
cloth in variety for mending garments and dressing 
wounds, was not omitted. 

For obtaining game, and for camp constructing, I had 
a double-barreled breechloader; in the waist-belt on the 
left side, a large size revolver, and on the right side a 
claw-hatchet with wrist string in the handle; sundry 
small traps, bunches of cord, insect nets, etc. At least 
one breechloading rifle should be in every hunting party. 

For preserving and transporting specimens, I found a 
tin knapsack, constructed with various apartments for 
alcohohc vials, lunches, medicine-box and eggs, very con- 
venient. At least ten gallons of alcohol and twenty 
pounds of arsenic were provided, besides some hundreds 
of muslin bags of different sizes, for keeping specimens 
distinct when thrown into one large jar. Convenient 
instruments, in duplicate, for skinning birds and animals 
and for blowing eggs, completed the general outfit. 

Two o'clock P. M., Jan. 29, 1874, found myself and 
party steaming out of the harbor of P., ui southern New 
England bound direct to Savannah. A sudden fit of indi- 
gestion admonished Fi-ed to seek cascading quarters, 
before we were fairly out of sight of land, whither I fol- 
lowed him in a short time. The Doctor and Erwin proved 
invulnerable, and greatly enjoyed our distress. How 
singular that of all the "ills that flesh is heir to," the most 
distressing never awakens a particle of sympathy from 
the unsuffeiTng, but rather mirth and cniel hectoring. 
Happily for Fred and myself, we were booked for the 
same stateroom, to which having retreated, through the 
live-long night and succeeding day, we were as sympa- 



thizing as the Siamese twins. On the third da", my sea- 
sickness fled more suddenly than it came, on hearing the 
cry on deck, "Porpoises! poi-poises! all round," Hasten- 
ing up, I found we were in a school of that species of 
Cetacea called Delphinus delphis and quite unlike the 
common porpoise. This latter is often seen entering bays 
and even ascending large rivers for miles, while Del- 
phinus rarely approaches soundings. Looking from the 
deck of the steamer, I had an excellent opportunity for 
observing their swift motions, and the upward and down- 
ward movement of the tail, in contrast with its horizon- 
tal movement in fishes. At regular intervals they would 
rise to the surface to breathe through their single spiracle 
on the summit of the head; but exhaling and inhaling 
in an incredibly brief period of time. The hot air 
from the lungs, surcharged with moisture, is instantly 
condensed to vapor, giving to the careless observer the 
appeai-ance of spouting water, which none of the Cetacea 
ever do. Celebrated for their swiftness, they play around 
the vessel, changing their position from side to side^ by 
sometimes passing under the bow and sometimes under 
the stern, but never disconcerted by the speed of the 
steamer, though plowing the waves at the rate of ten 
knots per hour. Both jaws are armed with numerous 
conical teeth, enabling them to feed upon the gregarious 
tribes of fishes. Robert L. PeU says: "It commits great 
ravages among the enormous shoals of flying fish (Exo- 
ccetiis volitans), inhabiting the temperate latitudes, and 
it is a very remarkable fact that he necessarily seizes it 
as it endeavors to e-cape him, behind; and were it not for 
provident nature, he could not swallow it on account of 
its wings. The moment, however, it enters Ms mouth, 
some internal management reverses the fish, and it passes 
down his throat head first. Tliis cetaceous animal much 
resembles the porpoise, but has a longer snout and more 
slender body." In this quotation from the address of Mr. 
Pell, before the American Institute, May 17, 1858, we 
suspect either he or the reporter rather mixed accoxints, 
by confounding the cetaceans £>e?p/iJH i(.s with the scale- 
fish Coryphcene, species of both genera being popularly 
called dolphins, though the former is a ma mm al and 
the latter a true fish. According to Captain Basil 
Hall, it is the Corijphwne that "commits great ravages 
among the flying-fish," and an old whaler by my side 
fully confirms his account, but as confidently denies Mr. 
Pelfs. Can any of my readers testify to ever having 
seen any species of porpoise pursue and feast upon flying- 
fish? 

Delphinus delphis is regarded as the true dolphin of the 
ancients, to which the Greeks paid divine honors, placing 
its image in their temples and impressing it on their coins, 
though never actually imitating nature in their represen- 
tations of it, but rather idealizing it as embodying physical 
and moral perfections beyond those of the human race. 

At noon we passed Cape Hatteras with a perfectly calm 
sea, very unlike some of my former passings of it in a 
sailing vessel in my youthful days. At 9 P. M. Sunday, 
we anchored m Tybee Sound, and at dawn proceeded up 
the Savannah River to the city. We conveyed our lug- 
gage across the city in a drenching rain, and started at 5 
P. M. in the cars for a night ride of 350 miles to Jackson- 



ville. The contrast between the station and car accom- 
modations of southern New England and southern Georgia 
was painfully striking. Toward dawn our train passed 
over the hard-fouglit battle-ground of Olustee, where the 
Union troops were disastrously defeated in the late civil 
war. Anticipating our arrival at the place, I had sought 
information among the passengers, and fortunately found 
one who WHS in the fight on the Sjuthern side. To my 
eager inquiries, he pointed out the graves of the Union 
soldiers who fell in the battle and in the hasty retreat of 
their comrades were left on the field, and I knew that 
there lay two of my former pupils, whose lives had been 
laid upon the altar'of their country. Another, who com- 
manded a company of cavalry in the fight, was taken 
captive on the retreat and thrown into prison, escaping 
only to die in a few weeks of the disease contracted dur- 
ing his prison life. 

At 10 A. U. arrived at Jacksonville— four and one-half 
days from snow and ice, to orange groves laden with 

Making inquiries for best route to Lake Okechobee, I 
found it was a "terra incognita" to even Floridians. The 
publisher of a recent map of the State pointed to it with 
the remark, "It is sa d to be there, but I have never met 
one who has seen it. Should you find it and return, 
having escai.ed its miasma and reptiles, do not fail to 
give me a call, and verify or correct my map for the next 
edition." The papers were teeming with sensational 
stories about the wonders of the lake; beautiful islands, 
on which are castle ruins, grassy plains and nondescript 
animals, among which latter were "spiders of 41bs. 
weight!" I was also informed of a party, just a day or 
two in advance of me, bound for the lake by a western 
approach to it. This information at once decided me in 
favor of an approach from the east, and with only two 
days" delay in Jacksonville, I found myself and party on 
the little steamer LolUe Boy headed for Salt Lake, ex- 
pecting to arrive there by 12 M. Saturday. 

To quote from the "Floridian Peninsula": "Such en- 
tire ignorance of a body of water with a superficies of 
1,200 square miles, in the midst of a State settled nearly 
half a century before any other in our Union, which had 
been governed for years by Spanish, by English, and by 
Americans, well illustrates the impassable character of 
those vast swamps and dense cypresses known as the Ever- 
glades; an impeneti-ability so complete as almost to justify 
the assertion of the State Engineer, so late as 1855: 'These 
lands are now, and will continue to be, as much unknown 
as the interior of Africa, or the sources of the Amazon!' " 
The sequel to my narative will show how completely two 
months more sufficed, through the perseverance of two 
of my party, united to two others that subsequently 
joined them, together with my own independent efforts, to 
dispel the vagueness and even romance attending a knowl- 
edge of its existence. 

Though the area of the State of Florida compares with 
that of New England in the ratio of 59 to 62, three-fourth 
of its surface is much of the year under water; and this 
fact will largelv account for the ignorance concerning its 
physical features. None but wild Indians, cattle-rangers 
and naturalists can be expQoted to wade through its 
swamps, risk its miasmata, and brave its dangerous ani- 
mals. From the first two, little information can be ex- 
pected, and the latter have but recently been attracted to 
its more inaccessible regions. 

The St. John's is an anomaly among rivers. Its sovu-ce 
or sources, like those of the Nile, are still unknown. It 
flows a little west of north, till near its mouth, for at 
least 300 miles, but with a change of level for that entire 
distance of not more than 6ft. Still it cannot be called a 
sluggish stream, which is aUthe more remarkable, "when 
it is considered that not an eminence in East Florida at- 
tains the height of 200ft. :" and where all the water comes 
from, to give for 150 miles from its mouth an average 
breadth of about two miles, in apparent contradiction of 
aU the hydraulic laws of physical geography, is the never- 
ceasing wonder, as day and night one steams over its 
surface. Ascending, the voyager traverses lake after 
lake; some extensive enough to give a water horizon, and 
fully justifying the alleged meaning of the Indian name 
Il-la-ka, "a river of many lakes;" though it may here be 
stated that an educated Choctaw chief defined the name 
as meaning, "it hath its own way, is alone contrary to 



everv other;" a signification quite as pertinent to its 
physical c>iaracter as the former. Its unnavigable por- 
tion seems to issue from an immense prairie covered with 
long saw grass, a region neighbor to the everglade and 
culminating in it. The great rains of the summer are 
here collected as in a reservoir, till the low latitudinal 
water-shed is overflown, and the sources of the northern 
flowing St. John's are confounded with that of the south- 
ern flowing Kissimmee. After the annual great rain fall 
is over, the running away of the waters reveals the sub- 
merged dividing line, and leaves the streams distinct, 
with an easterly and westerly water-shed of varying 
longitudinal width, but never extensive even in thedi-iest 
seasons. Such an anomalous condition was long sus- 
pected by those engineers who had approximated the 
sources of both streams, but it was left to the observations 
of my party, so far as I know, to confirm the view, as 
will appear in the sequel. 

Nearing the wharf at Hibernia, a few miles above 
Jacksonville, I was most agreeably surprised to find my 
lifelong friend, the late Professor Jeffries Wyman, at 
whose house, m Cambridge, Mass. , I had dined a few days 
before, and whom I supposed still in New England. 
Forced by chronic complaints, he was spending his 
twenty-third winter, if I remember rightly, in Florida, 
and as the event proved his last. Mitigatmg his tenden- 
cies to pulmonary diseases by a southern winter, and to 
catarrhal by a White Mountain autumn, he had for nearly 
a quarter of a century alternated between the two ex- 
treme latitudes, and thus prolonged a most useful life, 
till in the issue he left behind a reputation that estab- 
lished him in the line of comparative anatomy as the peer 
of Agassiz and Owen. 

At the moment of embarking on the little steamer, two 
ladies came on board whose ways at once suggested the 
"school marm." When informed by the clerk that every 
stateroom was already assigned, he was taken all aback 
by the reply, "Oh, anv of these gentlemen «-ill sleep on 
the saloon floor, just for one night." On hearing this 
remark, my first impulse was to put myself outside of 
that crowd at once. But observing that none of the 
younger passengers responded favorably to the appeal, I 
volunteered the half of my room, and induced the Doctor 
to give up the other half. Without a single "thank you" 
m reply, we were speedily dispossessed, and not possessed 
again, each day of the voyage proving so charming to the 
"ladies" that they concluded to remain aboard and return 
to Jacksonville with the boat. Gallantry, however, had 
its reward, though at the expense of a hard couch for suc- 
cessive nights. 

The steamer stopping the second day for an hour at 
Volusia to "wood up," an opportunity was afforded for 
examining the shell mound upon which the village is 
built. It is formed exclusively of fresh-water species, 
mainly AmpuUarias and Paludinas with some Unios, as 
are all the mound» upon the river from a few miles above 
its mouth, and has evidently resulted from being the 
dwelling-place of some of the" earliest inhabitants dm-ing 
the successive stages of its formation, and the casting 
away of the shells, after extracting their contents for food. 
Professsor Wyman, than whom no archaeologist has given 
more attention to their investigation, speaks with great 
confidence of their pre-Indian origin. My brief stay re- 
sulted in unearthing a few pieces of pottery, at varying 
depths, and in determining the river Une of the mound to 
be at least 100ft., with a height of 6 or 8ft., and of an un- 
certain extent inland, owing to the forest growth on the 
top of it. 

The shell mounds of Florida, whether upon the coast or 
the banks of its rivers, and especiaUy those abounding 
upon the St. John's from near its source to its mouth, 
must not be confounded with the sand or burial mounds 
no less abundant, but scattered all over the State and 
giving no evidence of ever having been used for dwell- 
ing places. In the fourth memoii- of the Peabody Acad- 
emy of Science, Vol. 1, 1875, Professor Wyman has pre- 
sented in a volume of about 100 pages quarto, finely 
illustrated, the result of his researches and conclusions, 
in resi)ect to fortv-eight fresh-water shell mounds on the 
banks of the Upper St. John's, and to which the reader 
is referred for the most complete account hitherto pub- 
lished of these most interesting reUcs. 
Our nights upon the St. John's were moonless, but the 



-3 



darkness did not prevent at least one side Issue up a 
narrow creek for an hour to leave provision stores and 
whisky at the camp of a woodsman. As we threaded 
our way in the Cimmerian gloom with interlacing 
brandies overhead, and sometimes sweeping the upper 
deck, the wildfowl were startled from their slumbers and 
the owls roused to a vigorous protest against the invasion 
of their domain?. But the lynx-eyed pilot, who success- 
fully steered liis way along the tortuous channel with 
not even tlie friendly glare of a lantern at the bow was to 
me tlie greatest wonder of the excursion. 

Again in the St. John's, we found oiu'selves at daylight 
nearing a bluff, where we left Pi'ofessor Wyman and his 
annual camping companion. G. A. Peabody, Esq.. of 
Salem, Massachusetts. To their great disgust, a squatter 
had taken possession of their old camping-site, and abeady 
erected a log house in the orange-laden grove. Appear- 
ing at the door with rifle in hand, he saluted the old- 
comers with, "How d'ye, gen'lmen, come to squat here?" 

In the af ernoon another side issue to the left took us 
into Lake Bcresford to leave another squatter, who had 
migrated from Georgia, and at a ventiu:e was being landed 
in a swamp with a wife and several children between the 
age of two months and twelve years. As their scanty 
furniture was handed out and the family left on the 
beach in the rain, with no shelter, and miles away from 
any human sympathizers, three hearty cheers were given 
by their departing fellow-passengero for the American 
pluck, male and female, that ever adapts itself to physical 
smroundings, however forlorn the prospect. 

Once more on the St. John's, we found its breadth 
steadily narrowing, till it was reduced to less than 200ft., 
an advantage to the hunters on board, of which they were 
not slow to avail themselves, in popping away at every 
alligator and large bird that appeared at short or long 
range. Soon, however, the banks recede again and sud- 
denly, as the steamer enters Lake Monroe, an expanse of 
water covering an area of at least twenty square miles. 
This crossed, the bluffs on either side are well-studded at 
advantageous points with shell mounds till the last great 
lake upon the river is sailed over, and the region of water, 
prairie and s%vamp is fully reached. At high water it 
makes little difference, in this region, whether the steamer 
keeps the channel or not, her sailing course well illus- 
trating the principle of "cutting across lots," At half 
stage, as we found it, the channel was sufficiently dis- 
closed to be followed, and equally well illustrated the 
doubling track of a hare with the hounds close at his 
heels. For a bii-d to rise from one side with the intention 
of proceeding but a short distance up or down stream, 
and alighting on the other side, and succeed twice in suc- 
cession, would establish its claim to sometlung of intel- 
ligence considerably superior to instinct. At length, 
growing weary of the monotony, I proposed to the captain 
to set me ashore and l^t me have a hunt of 100yds. across 
the base of a peninsula, while the steamer was doubling 
it at fifty times that distance. "Will you risk the snakes, 
alligators and quicksand.s?" was the squelching reply. 

Leaving the St. John's, a few mUes of navigation 
through Snake River, still more tortuous in its windings, 
and whose abrupt turnings often required the boat hands 
to jump ashore and push the bow round with poles, 
brought us into Salt Lake, so called from the saline taste 
of its water, a phenomenon as yet unexplained. Our 
voyage was terminated on the opposite side of the lake, 
by grounding the boat an eighth of a mile from the shore. 
A scow came off for us, having on it four cords of wood 
for the steamer. As our captain was supplied he declined 
taking it, and so our luggage to the amount of as much 
greater weight was pilel on the wood, besides fifteen or 
twenty passengers, and the scow pushed off". Half-way 
to the shore it grounded, and then the boatmen exclaimed, 
"Why, here is just where it grounded going out."' A fair 
specimen of "Cracker" calculation, of which this was our 
first, but by no means our last lesson. With the ground- 
ing of the scow a race commenced on the part of the mule 
and ox teams waiting for u.s on shore, to see which should 
reach us first to secure a load of goods and passengers for 
Sand Point, on the Atlantic coast, six miles distant. 
When they reached us the cart bodies were just even 
with the top of the water. For my part I selected a 
single mule team. For the bridle, a cord passed through 
the mouth and over the top of the head. Another single 



cord to the driver on the bare back, answered for a rein. 
A leather band supported the thills, and a collar made of 
strew, with wooden hames and short chains, completed 
the harness. Had the traces been of rawhide the whole 
arrangement would have been unique as a specimen of 
thriftlessness. Having packed on our baggage of SOOlbs., 
with two of us on top to balance it, we started for the 
shore, apparently better able to carry the little mule than 
it to draw us. The intervening six miles gave us our 
first Florida lesson in walking. Midway we passed a 
large sand burial mound, from the top of which Professor 
Wyman had exhumed a skeleton buried only a foot deep, 
though 6ft. below pieces of charcoal and decayed bones 
were discovered. 

While stUl in the woods, our teamster commenced un- 
loading at a hut constructed in part of logs and in part of 
framework covered with boards split out by hand. 

"Is this Sand Point?'" I inquired. 

"This is Sand Point." 

"But where it the ocean?" 

"A mile and a 'af further on." 

"Were you not to take us to the ocean, where we could 
find a sailboat?" 

"You bargained for Sand Point, and this house is where 
the post office used to be. To go to the wharf will cost 
you a dollar more." 

"Did you not know when the bargain was made that 
we expected you to take us to the shore?" 

"A bargain's a bargain, and if you want me to take you 
to the shore, I will come to-morrow night or Monday 
morning, and do it for another dollar." 

Here, then, was our first lesson in "Cracker" honesty. 
The captain of the boat having sent us ashore in the wil- 
derness, fifteen minutes before dinner, when our appetites 
were well whetted up for a bountiful repast, and which 
our walk of six miles had not in the least diminished, we 
concluded to disuiiss our honest teamster and stop over Sun- 
day at the hut yclept in the guide book Sand Point Hotel. 

The next day, inquiring for a church, was informed by 
mine host of a Sabbath school recently started in a school- 
house not far distant, he had "hearn tell of,'' but had 
never seen. Threading my way along a cow-path, I came 
upon the building, just as the school of six pupils and two 
teachers, one of whom was my honest teamster of the 
day before, was assembling. The floor was of rough 
boards, the apertures for light without glass, and the 
long benches without backs, but the Bible was in the 
building and the tender youth were taught its sacred 
truths. Outside of my own tent it was my last recognized 
Sabbath for seven weeks. 

Seeking negotiation for a sailboat, to take us a hundred 
miles further south by the Indian River to Fort Capron, 
the first boatman i 'resenting himself was so under the in- 
fluence of liquor that he was almost incoherent, though 
profuse in praisrs of his boat and his skill in managing it. 
Having declined his services, we fortunately secured the 
best boatman and boat on the river. 

Betime Monday morning, we had our luggage stowed 
upon the sailboat, a'd commenced a voyage of 100 miles 
fiu"ther south upon the Indian River, a misnomer for an in- 
terior sea or rather lagoon, running parallel with the Atlan- 
tic Ocean and connecting with it by infrequent inlets. Its 
salt water aboimds in innumerable varieties of fish, while 
the shores on eitherside are no less attractive to the sports- 
man. In some places, the banks recede from each other 
four or five miles, in others not more than 50yds. Oyster- 
bed reefs obstnret navigation for vessels larger than com- 
mon sailboats, but channels might be easily dredged 
across them for the passage of a small steamer, and thus 
open this more auspicious region of Florida to the tourist 
and invalid. 

Anxious to reach our most southern point of destination, 
we restramed oiu-selves from capturing either fish, reptile, 
bird or mammal, though the temptation was constantly 
presented; especially when, to reef sad, we ran into the 
mouth of St. Sebastian River, and saw upon the beach 
fresh tracks of deer, wildcats, and pumas. At sundown 
we anchored hard by the hut of oui- boatman's brother-in- 
law, in which we found shelter and repose, though not 
upon beds of down, but rather of dried hides. The larder 
furnished venison steak and hominy for supper and break- 
fast, besides the inevitable pork and yam of a "cracker's" 
repast. 



-4- 



The western shore at this point presents geological 
features of remarkable interest. That portion ordinarily 
washed by the waves presents a bluff, U or 8ft. in height, 
formed apparently of fragments of shells cemented into 
firm rock by pressure or lieat. but honey-combed with 
cylindrical orifices 6 to 15in. in diametiT extending i)er- 
pendicularly froui the surface of the blulf to a line cor- 
responding with the level of the beach at low-water mark. 
The appearance is as thougli a sudden overflow of the 
waves had deposited a mass of broken shells to the depth 
of lOf't. , more or less, around the closely growing trunks 
of an extensive grove of jjalnietto trees; and then, tlie 
shelly mass having consolidated ere the trees had de- 
cayed, the moulds of the trunk remained, a geological 
wonder. The same foundation structure is said to extend 
inland beneath the soil to an unknown distance, having 
been tested a lialf mile from tlie shore, and only kept de- 
nuded on and near the beach by the more powerful action 
of occasional storms. The geologic explanation of this 
unique feature is a desideratum. 

Between watching the "looming" of distant "points" 
ahead and astern, the "sailing" of pelicans and the 
"breaking" of huge sharks, at tiaies almost under the 
bow of the boat, the hours of the second day whiled 
away, till at 4 P. JM. we landed at Fort Capron, the pro- 
jected base of our swamp operations. Stepping from the 
boat a Yankee explorer bound also to Lake Okechobee, 
grasped my hand, and in a trice told me that he had 
brought out a sailboat all the way from New York city, 
with the intention of having it carried across the country, 
sixty miles, by an ox-team, to Fort Bassinger, on Kissi- 
mee River, down which he proposed to navigate till it 
should usher liim into the lake, and, moreover, he was 
only waiting to make up a party of four, having already 
secured one. Here was a dilemma. The addition to my 
party would make tlie number six, while the utmost 
capacity of his boat would accommodate but four. It 
was, however, quickly decided that we should all go to 
the river together, and then mature our plans according 
to circumstances. To secure the services of an ox-team 
and a driver, the "Explorer" and Erwin volunteered a 
tramp of ten miles to the cabin of a "cracker," who was 
understood to be able to furnish the team. On their re- 
turn the following day they reported themselves success- 
ful, and Saturday fixed upon as the date of our departure, 
the "cracker" engaging to take the boat and all luggage 
to the river at the point designated for forty dollars. 

Meanwhile indoor accommodations were furnished us 
at Fort Capron by "mine host" Judge P., to whom I had 
a letter of inti-oduotion from a former pupil. Erwin and 
PVed, at the suggestion of Doctor P., commenced initiat- 
ing themselves into camp life by erecting their tents in 
the yard. I donned my hunting suit and commenced 
collecting, not a little encouraged in that my first seven 
shots were each successful in securing the game. 

As the day of our departure drew near, I was informed 
that we should pass tlirough a settlement of outlaws, ten 
miles distant, every man of whom had left his native 
region for that region's good, and located himself outside 
of "law and gospel" just over the frontier line of civiliza- 
tion. The owner of our team, was accounted a leader 
among them, and by way of cautioning me, my inform- 
ant related, under the promise of secrecy, the particulars 
of a murder, within three weeks, by two of the gang, of 
an honest, industrious German, who had made for him- 
self a home just outside of their settlement. He, being a 
man of education and some degi-ee of refinement, not 
affiliating with them, and withal being envied the pos- 
session of a better orange plantation than they had, 
though wholly the result of his own industry, it was de- 
cided to get rid of him on the damning charge of being a 
stealer and killer of cattle. Among Floridian "crackers" 
this is a far more heinous crime than that of taking 
human life, and once fastened upon a man, if only on 
suspicion, immediately puts him out of the protection of 
such law as may exist. Finding their victim could not 
be driven away, their usual resort to treachery was 
adopted, and the deed committid to two desperate 
ruffians, one a yoimg man of nineteen, whom we will 
call Tom, and who will figure largely in the sequel of 
this narrative. To him, as the story was told me, oiur 
team owner promised his daughter in marriage, if suc- 
cessful. 



At first every effort was made to provoke a quarrel that 
should give some shadow of an excuse for the execution 
of their plot: but (lie imperturbably good nature of the 
honest (lerman would not beguile him into a dispute. At 
length, under tlie pretense of desiring some orange-slips 
from his excellent grove, they called at his cabin and 
asked for some dinner. Both dinner and slips were 
cheerfully given them, and tlien requesting their host to 
set them across the deep creek about a quarter of a mile 
from his house, he went with them for the purpose, but 
did not return. Soon after leaving his wife heard four 
gun and three pistol shots in quick succe.ssion; but sur- 
mising they were fired at game waited till near dark for her 
husband's return, and then repaired to the creek, only to 
be horrified with the sight of blood in the boat still secui'ely 
fastened on the other side. It was subsequently proven 
that the assassins thought to cover up the evidence of 
their guilt by dragging the body a half mile below and 
thrusting its dismembered fragments into alligator holes. 
The wife, snatcliing up her young child, traversed the 
gloomy wilderness for ten miles at the dead of night to 
Fort Capron and reported the deed. 

The following week the sheriff of the county, with a 
posse of ten men, started for the settlement with the in- 
tention o arrestmg the guilty parties. When within 
five miles of it he was met by a delegation informing 
him tha', his design was known, and the wliole neighbor- 
hood was assembled in one cabin with plenty of arms and 
provisions, and ready to endure a siege, but no one could 
be arrested while a man or woman remained alive. 
Under these circumstances, and considering "discretion 
the better part of valor," the sheriff beat a hasty retreat. 
Thus the matter stood two weeks subsequent, as I was 
about to enter the community, my informant closing up 
his narration with the remark that he felt it his duty to 
let me know the character of those to whom I was about 
to trust myself and my party, but cautioned me on no ac- 
count to breathe a suspicion of any one or reveal the 
secret to either of my companions, lest it might be sus- 
pected by the outlaws that we had some knowledge avail- 
able to the government, and, on the principle that "dead 
men tell no tales," find our last resting place in concealed 
alligator holes, even if their cupidity should permit us to 
return from the swamp after they had fleeced us to the 
extent we might permit. Forewarned, forearmed, I the 
more persistently determined to penetrate the mystery 
and walk the strand of Lake Okechobee. 

Saturday, punctually at 12 o'clock, our teamster ap- 
peared with two yoke of steers attached to a double set of 
shaky wheels. In an hour or two the boat was launched 
upon the axles and loaded with our provisions of coffee, 
hominy, hard-tack and pork; our ammunition, of powder 
and shot: our preserving materials, of salt, arsenic and 
alcohol (the latter poisoned, lest the teamsters should be 
tempted to try the preserving of themselves with it); our 
capturmg apparatus, of fish-net, insect-nets, etc., (guns, 
pistols and hatchets are on such trips to be a constant ap- 
pendage of the person ; besides the camera and necessary 
chemicals of the Explorer for )irocuring pictiu'es of the 
ruins said to be in the lake. When ready to start, I saw 
plainly the weight was too much for the wheels, and pre- 
dicted a break-down, to which, however, no other one of 
the party would listen. 

The cabin of the teamster lay upon the direct route to 
the lake, ten miles distant, where we expected to make 
our first encampment. All went well till we entered the 
bordering swamp of Five Mile Creek, when, after wading 
deeper and decider for half a mOe, and the oxen were just 
ready to jjlunge in all over for a swim across the channel, 
crash went one of the wlieels. There was no alternative 
but to wade back to dry land and camji without our tent. 
Fortunately, our provisions and cooking utensils were on 
the to]) of the load, and, by judicious distribution of the 
weight, easily borne back". Fi-om a stagnant pool near 
our camping place we obtained water for oui- coffee, after 
frightening away from the margin the lizards, etc., and 
then straining it to get rid of the smaller nuisances, both 
vegetable and animal. Rolled up in our blankets, we 
composed ourselves to sleep with clouds of mosquitoes 
settling down upon every exposed spot of flesh, and amid 
the hooting of owls and howling of wild beasts, having 
just before the break-down crossed the fresh track of a 
puma. To repair the damage there was no alternative 



■5- 



but for the teamster and his driver to push on with the 
oxen to his home and return as soon as a new set of 
wheels could be prociu-ed. 

At noon, on Slonday, he reappeared with a stouter set, 
for which he had meanwliile made an entirely new axle. 
Transferring the load, the old wheels were left in thek 
tracks, where five weeks later they still remained. Reach- 
ing the bank of the Cieek, it was found that neither oxen 
nor wheels could touch bottom. To effect a crossing, the 
yoke was taken off, and swum over, and so placed on the 
opposite shore as to be quickly hitched on again. The 
driver stripped naked, as well as the Explorer and Erwin, 
the former to swim at the heads of the oxen at the risk of 
being gored in tlieir w^ild plunges, the other two to swim 
astern and guide the boat against tlie current. The mo- 
ment the steers got foothold on the opposite bank, they 
refused to move, leaving the wheels sinking in the quick- 
sands and the boat rising from the axles. It was a criti- 
cal moment, but the leaders being hitched on and a sim- 
ultaneous shout raised by all, a "long pull and a strong 
pull altogether" landed the boat on the bank and relieved 
our anxiety. 

Five miles further brought us to the clearing of our 
"teamster." Selecting a place for a camp, I went on 
alone to a well near the cabin, and observed two men 
dressing a hog hung to the limb of a tree. Coming sud- 
denly upon them around a corner of the cabin, I noticed 
that the younger of the two instantly dropped his work 
and rushed for the cabin door, out of which he soon 
issued with a double-barreled gun in his hand and stood 
defiant. Apparently not noticing him, I passed back to 
my companions, wondering at his behavior. Soon our 
teamster took me aside and asked why I wore a pistol 
belt with U. S. on the buckle. I told him I had borrowed 
it from my cousin, who was color-bearer of his company 
during the late war. "Then you are not a United States 
Marshal?" To me the idea was so ridiculous I could not 
restrain my laughter, and he returned to his cabin. Sub- 
sequently I learned that the young man was "Tom," and 
the United States belt with its pistol on one side and claw- 
hatchet on the other, together with the gun in my hand, 
had aroused his suspicion that I had come with a posse in 
disguise for his arrest. "The criminal doth fear each 
bush an officer." Spreading our tent and smoking out 
the mosquitoes with pine knots. Fred and myself slept 
soundly with the expectation of rising at daylight to 
renew our trip to the lake. 

In the morning we were told by our teamster that the 
load was twice as heavy as he promised to carry and he 
should go no further unless it was reduced at least one- 
third, and he was paid sixty dollars instead of forty. 
Lesson second in "Cracker" honesty. Fred and myself 
volunteered to remain, while Doctor P. and Erwin in- 
sisted on advancing. Assuring Erwin I should see the 
lake before leaving Florida, if health permitted, he still 
chose to take his risk with the Explorer, alleging that he 
left New England with that sole object in view and now 
saw no other certainty but to go with the boat. Poor 
fellow, he went on, and he saw the lake and circumnavi- 
gated it, but while lying on his back most of the time for 
five weeks, shaking with fever and ague, hardly firing 
his gun during the whole trip. Of all this I was happily 
ignorant till I found him on my return from the swamps 
at Fort Capron, unable to walk across the room. 

Just before they were ready to start, the teamster came 
to me and said he had in the woods another pair of steers 
that six months before had been yoked. These Tom 
would catch and with a Ught cart take the luggage of 
Fred and myself on the morrow, and carry us too, except 
in the deepest wading places. By following then- wheel 
tracks and with a light load, we could easily overtake 
them. Besides, we had learned from a neighbor during 
the evening that Fort Bassinger was not more than ten 
mOes from the lake; moreover, this neighbor had left a 
boat at the fort, in which he would take Fred and myself 
to the la' e and back to the fort in one day, while the 
oxen were resting. Then we would retui-n to his cabin 
"together, and let the rest of the party pursue their plan of 
exploring the lake. For this service he must receive four 
dollars per day, including Tom's wages, who was at work 
for him. The plan s?eming feasible, I concluded to adopt 
it, and after much persuasion obtained Tom's consent, 
■who was not yet, as I afterwards learned, entirely free 



from the suspicion of my being a United States officer 
sent to arrest him. 

After frivolous delays of several hours Tom started for 
the woods, and toward night drove into the inclosure a 
"bunch" of cattle having one of the steers wanted. In 
singling this one out with the lasso it leaped the fence 
and was quickly out of sight again. He must now go a 
mile and get a neighbor, who, by the way, was his re- 
puted companion-assassin, and the twain go two miles in 
another direction and bori'ow some dogs, with which to 
catch the runaway steer. About ten at night they pass 
my tent, Tom ahead on a horse, holding one end of a rope 
around the horns of the steer; his companion, on foot, 
holding on to a rope around one hind leg of the animal, 
which had been caught by the nose with bloodhounds. 
The next morning the woods were again scoured for the 
other steer, which was brought in similarly about noon. 
An inspection of the cart decided, in the mind of Tom, 
that the wheels were too weak, and he must borrow a 
pair frrm a neighbor some eight miles away. This he 
would do next day and be ready to start Friday morning, 
three days behind time. Yielding at length to my re- 
monstrances, he started soon after dinner to exchange 
the wheels and break in the wild steers, returning past 
midnight. In the morning the last caught steer was 
utterly exhausted, and the third day of delay must after 
all be spent in hunting up and breaking in another. 
Friday morning we started, the first essay of the wild 
creatures being to upset the load in their zig-zagging 
through "a right smart palmetery" — rough palmetto 
roots above giound. 

The log cabin of our teamster was double, the two 
rooms being connected by a thoroughfare. But it was 
a palace in comparison with all the other residences 
in the settlement. A mile on our way we came to the 
cabin of Tom's companion-assassin, consisting of a single 
room made of logs loosely piled upon each other, in which 
dwelt a family of four. A track of loosely scattered 
feathers leading from a sapling close by the cabin to the 
swamp indicated where a wildcat had dragged away a 
hen the previous night, snatching it from within 2ft. of 
the sleeping inmates. A mile further on we reached the 
shelter of Tom's father's family. It was a roof of pal- 
metto leaves, supported on posts, the four sides entirely 
open to the air. Here dwelt the father and mother, two 
grown-up sons, two grown-up daughters and four younger 
children. A short distance beyond we swam a creek, 
just narrow enough to save the cart from going to the 
bottom before the steers gained footing on the other side. 
Hard by we passed the last evidence of "Cracker" life, 
consisting of a shelter of boughs in the form of one-half 
of an A tent, beneath which a hermit had slept for five 
years. Soon, the trail pursued thus far ended, and fol- 
lowing the wheel-tracks of our predecessors we struck 
the Alligator Flats, and during tlie rest of the day, mile 
after mile, waded axle deep in the mud and water. In- 
stead of riding on the cart, as was promised us, we were 
in constant fear of om- oxen giving out from sheer weak- 
ness, so that Fred and myself carefully avoided adding 
even the weight of our guns to the load, though Tom did 
not hesitate to moimt his burly form upon the cart-tongue 
most of the time, pretending that he could discern the 
guiding track beneath the water better by looking down 
upon it. As the deadly poisonous moccasin snake, more 
to be dreaded than the terrible rattlesnake, abounded in 
the 3ats and frequently rose up within 6ft. of us, throw- 
ing themselves mto a striking attitude and displaying 
their crooked fangs in fearful warning, we plodded most 
of the time behind the cart, that the splashing of the 
oxen might frighten away the reptiles. At length in the 
greater depth of the water and thickness of the grass 
Tom declared himself unable to distinguish the cart-ruts, 
and it became necessary for Fred and myself to go before 
and indicate guiding tracks by each taking one and beat- 
ing it out witli our feet. Thus we passed hour aft.r hour 
constantly whipping the water with long sticks to 
frighten away the snakes, though occasionally chilled 
with the sight of a moccasin gliding off a tussock of gi-ass 
and concealing himself, neither could tell where. Toward 
sundown we came to a pine island a few feet in diameter, 
with just enough of dry land for our fire and Tom to lie 
down beside it. Beyond, being one stretch of water as 
far as the eye could reach, we haul up, turn the oxen out 



to feed, bake our yams, barbecue our meat, curl up on 
the top of our luggage in the cart and go to sleep wink- 
ing at the stars. 

Tlie next day is but a repetition of the previous, only the 
wading is deeper and the wriggling snakes are more 
numerous. "Familiarity," however, "breeds contempt," 
even in tlie matter of exposure to the cold, clammy touch 
of a snake and danger from its deadly fangs, as well as 
in dissimilar experiences of liuman nature — a contempt 
leading Fi-ed and myself to often ease our blistered feet by 
throvFing our high-lop))ed boots upon the cart and sub- 
stituting brogaus, or even going barefoot. A disting- 
uishing feature of these water-praii-ies is an occasional 
stretch of cypress-clumps — clusters of trees presenting 
beautiful rounded outlines, very appropriately termed 
"Blue Mountains." Their attraction, however, is entirely 
upon the outside, and in the far distance. Approached, 
their blending foliage separates to the view and becomes 
scragged, while their bases are sunk in a most forbidding 
morass. Through such a "cj'press-slue" we forced our 
way, and emerged upon a clear, open prairie, where we 
camped for the night. Crossing this, we found ourselves 
dui'ing the forenoon of the third day entering an old mili- 
tary trail and on solid ground. Siwrnising that we must 
be near the fort, Fred at 11 o'clock pushed forward, and I 
saw no more of him till sundown, when he returned and 
reported an interminable prairie three hours in advance 
and no signs of the Kissimmee. Not much like overtak- 
ing the advance party, we thought; but there was no al- 
ternative, and while we were deliberating what was best 
to do on the morrow, the double-yoked team hove in sight 
on its return, having that morning left the Explorer 
and his party at Fort Bassinger as agreed, but found the 
fort sixty miles from the lake, instead of ten. Nor was 
there any neighbor's boat at the deserted fort, the Indians 
having probably stolen it, etc. . etc. The truth now flashed 
upon my mind, and I needed no more proof that the 
teamster's story was manufactured for the purpose of 
alluring me on to secui-e his four dollars per day. Lesson 
third in "Cracker" honesty. 

Our encampment for the night was near a creek whose 
bed was dry, but in which oiu- teamster affirmed he had 
sometimes found water flowing south, and at other times 
north, according as the region on either side of the east 
and west trail had received more abundant supplies of 
rain. A careful observation of the whole region fully 
convinced me that here we find in the wet season one 
(perhaps the most southern) of the many affluents of the 
mighty St. John's. So little, however, is the change of 
level that out of the same reservoir, and by the same 
channel, there heads, at times, another creek taking a 
southward direction into St. Lucie Sound, and on the 
northwest border of the same reservoir is fovmd issuing 
at high water an affluent of the Kissimmee, by whose 
channel a portion of the waters of this same great central 
reservoir find their way into Lake Okechobee, from whose 
more exposed surface excessive evaporation is constantly 
going on. This opinion is sustained by the rain charts of 
the Smithsonian Institution, which "show that the penin- 
sula of Florida is the region in which the rainfall is 
heaviest east of the Rocky Mountains, and further, that 
in the peninsula itself the cm-ves of the greatest rain en- 
croach ujion the headwaters of the St. John's, though 
still more upon those of the rivers flowing south into 
Lake Okechobee, and west into the Gulf of Mexico." 

Fred and myself had hardly erected our tent when it 
began to drizzle, with indications of abvmdant rain, but 
fortunately for vis, not realized. Ere we slept, a brother 
of tlie teamster appeared from beyond the Kissimmee 
with his mother, wife and seven childi-en ranging in age 
from tlu-ee weeks to twelve years, aU riding in a cart 
drawn by a single yoke of oxen. Two of the older chil- 
dren were shaking witli the fever and ague, to whom my 
prescriptions of quinine brought speedy relief. The chil- 
dren found shelter during tlie night beneath the cart, 
wliUe the adults lay down upon the damp ground, 
wrapped in blankets. Long before light we were cooking 
our breakfast, preparatory to an early start, when a de- 
mand was made upon our scanty store to feed the hungry 
mouths of the new-comers — a hospitality we were poorly 
prepared to extend, but wliich it was not in our heart to 
refuse, especially when pleaded for by the wistful looks 
of the little innocents. 



Relieving our jaded oxen by tranferring to our cart one 
yoke from the teamster's unladened wheels, it fell to me 
to handle the ropes and goad. So long as I kept in the 
rear of another team all went well; but if I essaj^ed to 
lead, my Yankee brogue was utterly luirecognized by the 
half-tamed creatures. Halting at noon beside a forsaken 
log-house, I amused myself with catching lizards, tree- 
toads and ant-lions, whde Fred left his dinner lialf-eaten 
to bag a flock of Carolina parrots, the first and oniy ones 
we met in Florida. True to their reputation, curiosity to 
know what had happened to a fallen companion seemed 
to keep them lingering around till all were shot without 
the shooter hardly stirring from his first cliosen position. 
There can be little doubt that this bird, once so abundant 
in all the Southern States, and even ranging into New 
York State, is fast becoming extinct east of the Mississippi 
River. After dinner, while waiting for our lazy teamsters 
to snooze, I still further amused myself with skinning a 
sandhill crane, in the midst of which operation rapid 
stinging sensations about the naked ankle, caused an in- 
vestigation, only to reveal a centipede or scorpion amus- 
ing himself with my nervous system. The application 
of hartshorn to the half dozen puncture reduced the 
swelling, and in two or three days I was no longer re- 
minded of the insect that menaces with its head, but 
wounds with its tail. 

The monotony of the afternoon drive was varied about 
four o'clock with the cry of "turkey ahead."' Fred and 
Tom undertook the task of providing us with fowl for 
supper, and with such success as to bring in a bird apiece. 
Just as we were congratulating ourselves on something 
better than hog and hominy, a party of six more, parents 
and children all told, overtook us and fastened themselves 
upon our party. The cracker's coach — the inevitable ox- 
cart — bore four of them, while two rode ponies. Taught 
by the experience of the morning, the dreams of Fred and 
myself vanished, and we resigned ourselves to the thought 
of little more than sniffing the perfumes of the savory re- 
past. The larder of the latest comers proved as lean as 
that of the earlier, and when all had partaken sparingly 
of the supper, the teamster declared that such as had 
horses, including himself, must push on at midnight, and 
leave the rest on short allowance, to reach his home by 
sundown on the following day, as not more than a spoon- 
ful of hominy to each was left. On further consultation 
it was decided for all to start at light and make a few 
mUes before breakfast. After a brief repast at the foot of 
a tree, our oxen were yoked and all fell into line. A 
wildcat springing out of the path was soon overtaken by 
the dog, but instead of being held by the dog, it tiu-ned 
the scale and held the dog, till Tom came up and released 
its victim by a charge of buckshot. Skinning the cat at 
our next halt, and throwing the carcass into the low 
scrub. I was surprised to find both the turkey buzzard and 
the Caracara eagle gathering around it in large numbers 
in less than twenty minutes, though when thrown away 
there was not a bird in sight. 

Both in going out toward the Kissimmee and in return- 
ing, wherever the water had dried away upon the prairie, 
numerous hillocks of freshly-formed pellets of sand, five 
or six inches in height, were discovered. Digging beneath 
the hills would invariably discover a small crayfish, that 
evidently maintained its home in the moist eai-tli by keep- 
ing beneath the influence of drought. 

As we neared the home of the teamster. Tom whispered 
in my ear, "We are going to have a party at our house 
to-morrow night," and as he said it, I observed a smile 
upon his countenance for the first time since we had met. 

Exclusion No. 1 from our camping base on Ten-Mile 
Creek proving fruitless, so far as seeing Lake Okechobee 
was concerned, and Fred being disinclined to sjjend any 
more time searching for it, I undertook the matter alone, 
and bargained with the teamstei' — whom we will here- 
after call BIr. J. — to provide me with a mule, and guide 
me at the beginning of the week to the Indian village 
some forty miles distant, and reputed to be in the vicinity 
of the lake. 

Our provisions being exhausted and one kind of shot, 
it was necessary for Fred to go to Fort Capron to replen- 
ish our larder and ammunition. We also hoped to receive 
letters, as we had heard nothing from home to this time. 
Tom's services were again secured, but this time as di-iver 
of a mule cart, which could, however, only reach Bell's 



-7 



grocery, a mile short of the post office grocery, where our 
ammunition was stored. Under the disappointment of 
no letters for either of us, Fred undertook to carry by a 
tangled foot path to Bell's grocery two bags of shot, five 
pounds of coffee, and a liandleless jug containing two quarts 
of sugar syrup for hominy, neither grocer having any 
sugar. A boat was at hand, but the boatman must 
have a dollar and a half for the mile of saiHng; nor would 
he help carry the load on land for less. Being ''Yankee" 
pluck against "Cracker'' generosity , the former triumphed, 
but a kind Providence tlu-ew a man in his way soon after 
starting — probably one of the loungers about the grocery — 
who for fifty cents re'ieved Fred of a part of his load. 
This deposited in the cart, it started homeward, while 
Fred made a detour of tliree miles to get at another grocery 
five ])Ounds of hominy and his singlebarreled gun he had 
left tliere when fu-st starting for the lake. In a little time 
the paper hominy-bag gave way, and the contents com- 
menced marking liis track. In this exigency he remem- 
bered the big pocket in his hunting coat extending over 
the whole back, and designed as a receptacle for game. 
Into this goes the remnant of the hominy and is saved. 
In swimming Five-Mile Creek the jug of syrup rolled out 
of the cart and was left in the mud at the bottom. So 
all the delicacy we had for either coffee or hominy, we 
hadn't. 

While Fred was gone I skinned a pair of coons, male 
and female, both secured at one shot. The male had 
marks of great age, and, judging from his mutilated ears, 
must have been a hard fighting character in youth. One 
bone had also been broken square off, and no surgeon 
being at hand to reduce the fractiue, it had healed 
with the two ends lapping, through contraction of the 
muscles. 

As suggested by Tom, toward sundown of the day fol- 
lowing our return I observed men, women and children 
gathering at the cabin, mostly on foot, but some on horse- 
back and others in ox-carts. At length a man I'ode up of 
graver mien and with horse more richly caparisoned 
than any other I had seen. Soon Mr. J. brought him to 
my tent, and taking me aside, said, "ThisToian is a justice 
of the peace, and has come sixty mi'es to marry Tom to 
my daughter to-night, but there is a hitch in the aiTange- 
ment, as the last week's mail has failed to bring the license 
sent for. Now what do you advise, as the justice cannot 
wait two weeks for another mail, and my neighbors for 
ten miles around are all gathered to ■n'itness the cere- 
mony?" As the malfeasance would be whoUy on the par': 
of the justice, inasmuch as should he perform his part 
with their consent, they would be legally married to all 
intent and purpose, it was flna ly decided that Mi'. J. and 
Tom should give the justice a written obligation, with 
myself as witness, to send liim the certificate as soon as 
possible, which document they botli signed by making 
theu- mark, after I had assiu:ed them it was written cor- 
rectly. Nothing fui-ther hindering, Tom and his bride took 
position on the platform connecting the two rooms of the 
log cabm, while the justice pronounced them, without 
any questioning or pledging, husband and wife. Tom had 
exchanged his teaming suit for a similar' one, only more 
cleanly, and his bride contented herself with plain calico 
without ornaments of any kind, but with shoes and stock- 
ings — the first time I had seen lier wear any. After the 
ceremony, the bride's mother and grandniother stepped 
up and shook hands without kissing, and were followed 
by her father without coat or vest, shoes or stockings, but 
witli shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbaws, and his pants 
to his knees. After a long pause, I considered it my tui'n 
to shake hands with them, though, with all my knowl- 
edge of their antecedents, and at how fearful a price Tom 
had gained Ms bride, I could hardly bring my mind to con- 
gi'atulate them upon their union. The ice broken, there 
was a rush for handshaking, after which Mr. J. bi'ought 
out a fiddle with two strings and called for dancing. Un- 
able to aid in this part of the festivity, I soon retu'ed to 
my tent, though disturbed till dayliglit with tlie music 
and toe-tripping. There miglit have been some whiskey- 
drinking, but it was not apparent, nor did I see any one 
inebriated, though Sir. J.'s prolonged efforts to extract 
music from the two-stringed fiddle had evidently over- 
taxed his nervous system and somewliat disguised him. 
During the forenoon the guests were scattered about the 
premises, sleeping off the weariness of the night, and by 



sundown all had departed, even the guests from beyond 
the Kissimmee. It was, however, discovered that many 
equipments had changed hands, either intentionally, on 
the principle that "exchange is no robbery," or in the 
confusion of a half-wakeful condition. Jly own premises 
were undisturbed except by the wandering hogs, whose 
long snouts thrust between my tent-coverings rooted me 
up, and interfered with my slumbers more than the 
squeaking of tlie fiddle. 

"While waiting for Mr. J. and Tom to sleep off the 
weariness of tlie wedding festivities, Fred and myself 
busied ourselves in preparing skins of such birds and 
animals as were vicinous to the camp, such as turkey- 
buzzards, brown-headed nut-hatch, hawks, lizards and 
snakes. WHiile skinning the coons a buzzard alighted on 
a branch within 20ft. and patiently watched the opera- 
tion, expecting, no doubt, to feast upon the carcasses. 
His sauciness tempted my gun beyond endurance, and an 
off-hand shot quenched his appetite forever. Dropping 
into a mass of palmetto scrub, I requested Fred, who was 
cooking our' supjjer, to bring him in, lest the hogs should 
appropriate him before I could leave my work conveni- 
ently. Ever accommodating and respectful, he essayed 
to fulfil my request, but quickly returned, blui'ting out 
snappishly between the retchings of his stomach, "Go get 
the stinking thing yourself !" — the first and only im- 
patient expression that fell from his lips in all our trip. 
It was his first experience of close proximity to the foul 
bird, wliile my childhood "Virginia experience had made 
me familiar with its habits. Instantly suspecting the 
reason of his disgust, I forgave hira in my heart? his un- 
intentional disrespect, and laughingly rallying him on 
the weakness of his stomach, picked up the bird myself 
and put it in a safe place from the hogs, notwithstanding 
the unsavoriness of the ejections from its nostrils. 

The wily "Cracker," BIr. J., having by this time con- 
cluded he had found the goose that lays a golden egg, 
began to tell of heronries a few miles away in different 
directions that would furnish us all the variety of birds 
and eggs we could desire. To test his word, Fred went 
with bim the second day after the wedding to the nearest 
one, Mr. J. on horseback and Fred afoot. Five miles, 
most of the distance through water from ankle to knee- 
deep, brought them to the heronry. It was a cypress-slue 
with tall trees, twenty-five feet in height to the lowest 
limbs, and thick undergrowth of bushes, ten to twenty 
feet in height. Most of the nests were in the trees, though 
some were in the tops of the bushes. By wading, in some 
places waist-deep, and climbing the bushes, Fred was 
able to secure twenty-seven eggs of the snakebird and 
white heron. The bushes and nests were dr'ipping with 
the excrements of the birds, giving Fred a second lesson 
in some of the unpleasant experiences of a naturalist. 
Stumbling over an unseen slimy log, he dropped his gun, 
and in recovering that completed the drenching of all his 
garments. On his way out he had shot a snakebird and 
a white h;roii, and left them to seciu'e ou his return. 
Airiving on the spot a few feathers only were found — a 
dozen or more buzzards on the tres contiguous explain- 
ing the absence of the bodies of the game. Nearing the 
camp, he secured for me a ground rattlesnake, a species 
about two feet in length and much smaller than the dia- 
mond, but more venomous. One morning, shaking up 
my bed of palmetto leaves, I noticed one of these reptiles 
crawling away from my couch. "Wishing to secure one 
of the larger species, 1 offered a ten-year-old son of a 
"Cracker" passing oui' camp a dollar if he would bring 
me one not less tlian foiu' and a half feet in length. In 
less than fifteen minutes he returned, dragging at the end 
of a string fastened around his neck an adamanteus five 
and a half feet in length and seven inches girth, with ten 
rattles. Between rattlesnakes on the land and moccasins 
in the water, it became us to be ever on the alert. 

"When making arrangements for the lake, Indian 
Charley, son of As-se-he-ho-lar or Osceola, the famous 
Seminole chieftain, happened to pass the camp. He 
wore a heavy turban on his head, a frock reaching half 
ways to his knees and moccasins on his feet. His skin 
had the genuine copper color of the wild Indian, and his 
hair hung over his shoulders in long, raven-black locks. 
He had a deer slung on his back, with a bundle of tanned 
deer skins for trading. I learned from Mr. J. that the 
Indians first soak their deer skins till the epidermis with 



-8 

the hair drops off and then pound them in a wooden 
mortar with the brains of the deer to tan the skins and 
make them pliable. Charley acted very stujiid, jiretend- 
ing that he diil not understand us. Further acquaintance 
showed that this was only Indian caution before strangers, 
putting you off your guard till, by listening to your re- 
marks in apparent indifference, they have made up their 
mind concerning you, and then relaxing or maintaining 
their stolidity, according to the impression you have 
given them — a lesson in human nature their more en- 
lightened white brethren might learn and practice with 
profit. 

Having become disgusted with our high-top boots and 
brogans for swamp travel we importuned Charley to 
make each of us a pair of moccasins. Showing him 
paper money he signitied he would make a pair for a dol- 
lar, but would discount 00 per cent, for silver. Having 
fortunately, the morning I sailed from the North, ex- 
changed at a bank twenty-five dollars in paper currency 
for silver, paying 9 per cent, for the difference, specie 
payment not liaving been resumed, I now had the best 
opportunity afforded me for speculation I had ever ex- 
perienced—a gain by the trader's own offer of 41 per 
cent. ; and thus far I regard it as the silver-letter day of 
my life. The bargain struck, Charley unroled his bundle 
of buckskins, measured my foot with a stick, and with 
only a knife and a bone awl, in half an hour made me a 
pair of moccasins that did me excellent service for weeks 
afterward, and are now deposited in the museum of 
Brown University as a sample of utilitarianism respect- 
ing our pedal extremities it were well a more boastful 
civilization should progress to instead of tortiunng nature 
with cramping shoes, in obedience to a slavish servility 
to fashion and for the benefit of corn doctors. 

I learn that Mr. J. has the credit of causing the last 
Semmole war in 1857, i y wantonly and piu-posely shoot- 
ing an Indian squaw, that the remnant of tiie tribe left 
in the swamps around Lake Okechobee, after the removal 
of the greater part in 1843, might be more circumscribed 
in their aheady narrow limits guaranteed to them by a 
solemn treaty, and thus enable the constantly encroach- 
ing frontier settlements of outlaws from northern Florida 
and Georgia to enlarge their cattle ranches — the main 
dependence of Cuba for beef. I met many "Crackers" 
who participated in that war of intended extermination 
of the tribe, and it was their universal testimony that the 
whites were, in every instance, the aggressors. One 
thing is certain, the word of the Indian and his general 
adherence to the golden rule were far more to be de- 
pended upon than the majority of the whites whom I met 
in that locality. 

Daylight Monday morning found me mounted upon a 
mule, starting again for Lake Okechobee in company 
with Mr. J. Guided across the country by my pocket 
compass and map, and disregarding turkeys, deer and 
game of all kinds, about sundown we turned our creatures 
loose, kindled a fire, cooked our supper, and lay down to 
sleep at the foot of a taU pine. The night was clear but 
moonless, and I slept soundly despite the mosquitoes, till 
the unearthly hooting of a large owl right over my head 
awakened me. To raise my gun without raising myself 
and drop him at my feet, was the work of a moment, and 
to drop to sleep again was the work of another moment. 
In the morning I foimd the bird within 3ft. of me, and 
was severely reproved by my companion for not throwing 
it into the bushes when it fell, fearing it might have at- 
tracted the "varmint" to us. Within half a mile of our camp 
we struck the trail that led us in an hour to an Indian 
lodge — simply a roof -shelter of palmettto leaves, supported 
by four posts, with the sides wholly exposed to the winds. 
A platform of rails but two feet high, covered with deer 
skins, formed the couch. Outside upon the ground was 
a fire with sweet potatoes and a corn cake baking in the 
ashes. Upon a log near the fire sat a squaw nursing a 
pappoose, while a boy and girl of ten or twelve, entirely 
naked, were swinging a younger child in a hammock. 
As we came in sight, the pater familias, knowm among 
the "Crackers" as Tommy Tiger, planted himself in front 
of the lodge, with folded arms, standing full six feet two, 
clothed only in a frock reaching half way to the knees. 
To Mr. J.'s "Good morning. Tommy," not a word of reply 
or movement of a muscle. "Yank, Okechobee, here night, 
you guide, silver," was uttered by Mr. J., partly by words. 



but more by signs. A shake of the head only in reply. 
"Where's Chief Tustenuggee?" A wave of the arm by 
Tommy signified that he was way off hunting. I then 
broke in, "Me Yank, Okechobee, one day, silver," suiting 
my action to my word by displaying a handful of the 
shining halves and quarters. His eyes sparkled, and 
turning upon his heels without a sign struck a bee line 
for the woods. "He's gone for his pony," said the guide. 
Observing a child enter a swamp, we followed, and cross- 
ing a creek on narrow footlogs, came out upon a hum- 
mock of pine land, where we found half a dozen more 
lodges, and plenty of women and children, but no men. 
The women were grubbing the ground preparatory to 
planting corn. The children were amusing themselves 
with their bows and arrows. 

These Indians, to the number of about forty families, 
are a remnant of the Seminoles left in the Everglades at 
the close of the war of 1857. They are not recognized by 
the Government and maintain their original habits of 
living by hunting and fishing in a tribal relation; electing 
and deposing at pleasure their chief, whose word is abso- 
lute. No missionary labor has been dispensed among 
them, nor do they seemingly need it more than the neigh- 
boring whites. Their singular custom of loading down 
the female children with glass beads — necklaces obtained 
originally from the Spaniards and passing down the 
generations as heirlooms, must have some physiological 
significance, which, in my ignorance of their language I 
could not discover. A single necklace is put on qt birth 
and additions made from time to time, till I counted over 
a hundred around the neck of a maiden of eighteen or 
twenty, the whole weighing not less than 251bs. A very 
aged squaw tottered around beneath a similar burden, and 
from her erect form, I inferred the object of wearing 
them might be to develop and preserve physical symmetry. 

On the border of the creek I found an outcrop of coral 
rock gi-eatly worn and decayed, with north and south 
strike. This find strongly countenances the correctness 
of Mr. C. J. Maynard's conclusions respecting the geologi- 
cal "process of land-making" bj which the peninsula of 
Florida has been formed. Simply premising that the 
theory requires there to have been in geologic ages past a 
more or less extensive ridge of rocks along what is now 
the western coast, as a foundation for coral building, I 
will quote at length from the Sportsman, in which paper 
Mr. Maynard first published his views in 1874: 

"Ages ago these breakers which roll upon this eastern 
sandy beach, dashed on the rocks of western Florida, 
more than a hundred miles away. Then it was that the 
little polyp, living far down beneath the sea, began to 
abstract lime from the surrounding waters and build a 
line of coral reef, just like the one which now lies along 
the Florida Keys. When the coral rock had risen to the 
surface of the water the action of the waves continually 
cast sand and shells over it, gradually filling the space 
between it and the shore. These accumulations aiose 
more rapidly immediately behind the reef and soon over- 
topped it, rising above the surface in a long ridge. This 
grew wader and wider, and finally became covered with 
vegetation, presenting the appearance of a veritable beach 
ridge like the one on which we stood. 

"The waves with their ceaseless motion ground and 
beat millions of shells to pieces, just as they are now 
beating and grinding them. The wind swept the lighter 
fragments into the lagoon which was now formed be- 
yond, while the waves during storms rushed over the 
ridge and carried with them the larger shells. The sand 
being heavier, settled down, and the shells gradually ac- 
cumulated over it until the lagoon was filled and dry 
land was formed, which was soon covered with vegetable 
mold upon which grew the luxuriant vegetation of the 
South. 

"Thus it was that a great level plain was formed, vrith 
enormous depressions, in which fresh water collected. 
These hollows then formed swamps, which overflowed, 
and the water striving to escape to the sea marked out 
the river beds. It can now be understood how it is that 
the foundation of Florida is composed of lime rock. This 
immense bed of loose fragments of shell became cemented 
together by pressure with the help of water, and now 
forms the underlying strata just below the surface of the 
soil. 

"This in general is the plan of the formation of Florida. 



-9 

Two of these partly filled lagoons are now to be seen on 
the eastern coast; Indian River — which, as it has a supply 
of fresh water continually sweeping through it from the 
swamps at the north, will probably always remain much 
as it is at present: Mosquito Lagoon — which, as the shelly 
heach on the western side indicates, is now slowly filling 
and before many seasons have passed will be solid land. 
The water of this lagoon is very salt. The tide ebbs and 
flows but a short distance from the inlet, which is shal- 
low and narrow, while on account of constant evapora- 
tion, the waters of the southern end of the lagoon some- 
times contain 25 per cent, more salt than that of the 
neighboring ocean. Where the beach ridge is narrow 
the coral reef can be see just below the surface of the 
water. The beach ridge is 25ft. higher than the surface 
of the ocean; yet during storms the waves dash over the top." 
According to this theory the St. John's flows in the 
latest formed lagoon west of the Indian River, while the 
southern terminus of the peninsula must once have been 
north of Like Okechobeeand have been continued south- 
erly by successive reefs curving to the southwest. 

In about half an hour Indian Tommy returned bestride 
a pony without saddle or bridle. Girting on a blanket, 
with stirrups of deerskin and a bridle corresponding, and 
binding on his moccasins, with a few sweet potatoes 
tucked into the bosom of his frock, he mounted and 
started for the woods in a bridle-path without a sign of 
any kind indicating his intentions. We mounted and 
followed in true Indian file at a stiff trot for an hour, 
without a backward look from oirr guide. Coming to a 
creek bordered on either side for 50ft. with thick under- 
brush, lie dismounted and sounded the quagmire with a 
large stick, till, finding a fording place, he led his pony 
by the thong reins across the slough. We foUowed his 
example, but when we emerged from the thicket he was 
trotting at double speed, full quarter of a mile distant. 
At the end of another hour he suddenly dismounted, 
hung all his horse equipments upon a branch, turned 
the pony loose, and sat down composedly to eating his 
potatoes. Imitating him we built a fire, boiled our 
coffee, broiled our venison, and at one o'clock signified 
that we were at his service. Immediately he struck into 
a blind trail in the unburnt grass, that terminated in 
quarter of an hour in a cane-brake. Signifying to one of 
us to follow a few feet to the right of liim, and to the 
other a few feet to the left, he plunged into the morass, 
parting the cane with his hands. In half an hour the 
water was nearing my waist, when we came upon four 
canoes hollowed from logs. Tommy selected the best, 
and motioning to us to get in, with some difficulty we suc- 
ceeded, lying close in the bottom. He then went still 
further into the cane, till lost to view, but soon returned 
with a long pole and a paddle. Bounding into the canoe 
like a cat. he p:)led us along for an hour, when we en- 
tered a cypress swamp, with open water among the huge 
trunks, though greatly impeded by cypress-knees from be- 
neath, and bramble giowth from above. For once, his 
Indian keenness was at fault, and after fruitless efforts for 
an hour, to penetrate the cypress slough, we worked our 
■way back to where we entered, when Tommy started off 
waist deep in the water, prospecting. When 100ft. away 
a low chuckle reached our ears. "He has found it," 
exclaimed my companion, and speedily he appeared 
with an approximation to a smile upon his counte- 
nance, the first I noticed. Poling the canoe through 
the cane and saw-grass to the spot, I noticed a twig 
broken half off, 2ft. above the water and bent to the left; 
also flags, a sure indication of a sluggish current or chan- 
nel. Fifty feet fm-ther on a twig was broken similarly, 
but bent to the right. Though in a creek, no current was 
perceptible, and often a thick curtain of brambles had to 
he lifted by Tommy's pole while we dragged ourselves 
beneath. In other places logs impeded our track, which 
we sometimes crawled under, and at other times hauled 
the canoe over. Tommy, giant that he was, depressing 
the bow or elevating the stern. After toiling another 
hour in forcing our way through the cypress, and disturb- 
ing not a few '"gator, moc'sins and such like varmin," as 
my "Cracker" companion called them, we found our- 
selves suddenly debouching on the lake, with only a water 
horizon in front, and limitless banks on the right and left. 
The problem is solved-there is a Lake Okechobee, and even 
my "Cracker"' guide, who had been five years searching for 



it, is obliged to give up his doubts and confess that I had 
enabled him to find it. Before landing we paddled out 
from the shore for a (quarter of a mile. Sounding 
with a pole, we found it eight feet deep, and were 
assured by Tommy it was nowhere deeper than that. Its 
shallowness permits light winds to stir up the bottom, 
and hence its destitution of fish, the fine sand being 
troublesome to their gills. My first impulse, as I stepped 
from the canoe, was to climb the tallest tree and see if I 
could discover the boat or camp of the Explorer and his 
party. Seeing nothing of them, I contended myself with 
cutting my name in the bark of a huge box tree, in hopes, 
if they had not already passed this point in their crcum- 
navigation of the lake, they might find it, and thus Erwin 
know ere we met, how well I had fulfilled my promise to 
see the lake before leaving Florida. Two weeks later 
they passed the point, but not near enough to discover 
signs of occupation. It is now known as the result of 
their exploration, that "the lake is about forty-five miles 
in length, from north to south, and thirty in wadth, from 
east to west, near the center.'" With the exception of 
two small islands on the southwest bordtr, it is an un- 
broken expanse of water, terminating at the south in 
"the Everglades, through which, without creek or river, 
the accumulated drainage of thousands of square miles 
of territory slowly percolates by millions of channels 
with countless ramifications, to the ocean and the gulf." 
Convinced that the shores of the lake, where I examined 
it, were utterly barren of animated natural history, and 
warned by the low descending sun, I gave orders for our 
return. 

Having gratified my curiosity as to the existence of the 
lake, I more carefully inspected the skirting rypress 
slough on my return, and was amazed at the gigantic 
ferns and flaming epiphytic air plants. Overarching 
vines and Spanish moss festooned the trees, while varie- 
gated leaves of beautiful lilies tinted the waters. But 
hideous snakes and repulsive alligators alone represented 
the animal kingdom to enjoy these rare charms of the 
vegetable — leading me often to ask, "Why does the Cre- 
ator so frequently display His selectei^ skill in places ^f" 
inaccessible to mortal man?" 

Reached the hiding place of the canoes at sundown 
and the halting place at dusk to find our horses all right. 
It being too late to go further, we built our camp-fire, and 
sharing our supply with Tommy, I lay down to sleep, 
with a known murderer and outlaw on one side and a 
wild Indian on the other, in a wilderness at least fifty 
miles distant from any semblance of civilization. It was 
impossible to prevent intrusive thoughts of suspicion that 
my watch and silver might prove a stronger temptation 
than their honesty could bear — especially when I awoke 
about midnight and found Tommy stepping noiselessly 
near my head. Instinctively one hand grasped my pistol 
and the other searched for my hatchet, till I discovered 
his intentions were only to recruit the fire. To thwart 
the clouds of mosquitoes that settled down upon every 
exposed part of my body, and even pierced readily 
through my sail cloth pants and blue flannel shirt, as soon 
as Tommy lay down I parted the fire and laid myself 
down between the two heaps, that the wind might blow 
the pine-knot smoke across my face. As a result from 
the gathering of the soot upon my hair and beard, I was, 
in the morning, far more of an Indian in appearance than 
Tommy, to his great amusement — the second time I had 
seen anything like a relaxing of his facial muscles. 

Observing numerous stumps of large trees, that had 
evidently been cut by a civilized axe, I learned from 
Tommy that we were encamped upon the site of General 
Taylor's great battle with the Indians in 1837, when he 
was most disastrously defeated. Tommy explained in 
his pantomimic way how the soldiers fled in their retreat, 
and also how the Indians scattered, in the final issue of 
the war, to the swamps we had just penetrated. 

But where are our horses? Tommy climbed the tallest 
tree, but could see nothing of them. Descending he took 
a circuit, till, discovering their tracks, he darted off in a 
tangent, returning in a couple of hours driving them be- 
fore him. Having Tommy to feed, we were on short 
allowance for breakfast, but on reacliing Tommy's lodge 
at noon, he brought out sweet potatoes in abundance, 
with jerked venison, and, as a luxury, he drew into a 
broken gourd some honey from a bottle made of the skin 



-10 



of the leg of a deer, stripped off whole and plugged up at 
the ankle end with a wooden stopper. We all dipped 
our bread together into the gourd with a good relish — so 
readily does real liunger do away with squeamish ness. 
After lunching, I offered the promised silver. Tommy 
held his open palm toward me, but turned his face from 
me. I dropped into his palm one, two, three, four half 
dollars, when he closed it, tucked the silver away in his 
frock, and started off, without any more of a farewell 
than of a welcome the day before. 

For fifty years an Indian relic constructed of a dozen 
box-tortoise shells, bound together by deer skin thongs, 
each one partially filled with wihl beans, had lain in a 
physician's office in Providence, R. 1., with the tradition 
that it came from the Seminoles, though nothing more 
coiild be said about it when it was presented to the 
museum of Brown University. At my first sight of the 
Indian lodges I was gratified to observe the same article 
suspended under the roof of each one. As Tommy turned 
to leave me I signified my desire to purchase a pair of 
them. At first he flatly refused, but as I urged he com- 
menced a dialogue with his squaw and aged mother, 
which ended in his holding up one finger for one and two 
for two, meaning a dollar for one and two dollars for a 
pair. I readily took a pair and then desired him to put 
them on and show me how to use them. At that he 
straightened up to his full height of 6ft. 3in. , folded his 
arms and looked down upon me with such a withering 
frown as completely cowed me. Mr. J. instantly grasped 
his pistol, so threatening was his scowl. But Tommy 
quickly recollected himself, pocketed the insult and con- 
temptuously pointing to his wife with the exclamation, 
"Squaw dance," turned upon his heel and left me. I at 
once saw my mistake and how grievously I had insulted 
him by intimating that he, a brave, should demean him- 
self to put on an article which, I afterward learned, was 
worn only by the squaw^ as a musical accompaniment to 
their green-corn dances. Going over to her, I held out a 
silver quarter, when she readily bound them below the 
knee, and gave me a specimen of a Seminole reel. 

My return to Fred's camp was devoid of interest, 
except that my Cracker companion got out of tobacco 
from sharing with Tommy (who, in his turn, shared with 
all his picaninnies except the pappoose in the hammock), 
and soon became very cross, often putting his horse into 
a gallop and getting far ahead of me, it being almost im- 
possible for me. with stick and spur, to urge my mule 
out of a slow trot. The second day he became insolent, 
and insisted finally upon breaking camp at 10 o'clock at 
night, to reach home at midnight, saying his hor e would 
know the way home in the darkest night. Knowing 
what he might be if the lion within him was aroused I 
carefully avoided irritating him and let him have his own 
way. When about two miles from home he wanted me 
to let him have my pistol to fire off as a signal to his 
family that he was coming, pretending that he always 
did so when he returned home. Asking him why he did 
not use his own he said "mine spoke loudest." As I 
handed it to him with my left hand I cocked my double- 
barreled gun with my right and fell back a little into the 
darkness. He fired two shots in quick succession and 
said he would fire two more half a mile further on. and 
did so, and then returned me the pistol and somewhat 
relieved my anxiety. Just upon that, a year-old colt be- 
longing to him galloped up, and though doing nothing out 
of the way, he commenced venting his spite upon it by 
filling the air with his curses. At length, determined to 
hurt something, he dismounted and commenced belabor- 
ing the colt with a large club, but in the darkness gave 
his own horse a thwack that sent him flying and landed 
his saddle-bags in the bushes. The faithful beast, how- 
ever, returned at his call, and after a long search the 
saddle-bags were replaced, and we arrived at his cabin 
to find Fred all right in his tent, but greatly rejoiced at 
my return. I have no reason to think Mr. J. designed 
harm, but to this day his conduct is utterly unaccount- 
able to me. 

During my absence Fred tented alone, employing the 
first day in household matters, cleaning Ins gun, sharpen- 
ing his hatchet antl skinning-knives, shooting a couple of 
birds in the vicinity of the camp, trying his hand at bak- 
ing bread in a borrowed Dutch owen, and retiring at sun- 
down; but the wandering hogs so disturbed him he rose 



soon after midnight and built a rousing fire. This 
brought from the cabin a Mr. N. , the eccentric character 
of the settlement, a squatter and bachelor, whose home- 
stead, three miles distant in the woods, consisted of a 
mule cart, beneath which he slept in his blanket on the 
bare ground, and whose personal property comprised the 
one suit of clothes he wore and the mule I roile to the 
lake, with dilapidated saddle, bridle and saddle-bags. 
Lending a hand to the squatters occasionally, he earned 
a precarious subsistence, spending what little money he 
could get hold of for whiskey. Obeying the caution I had 
impressed upon me by Judge P., at my introduction to 
"Cracker" life, I carefully avoided inquiring into the 
antecedents of any one, but Mr. N. must have seen better 
davs at some period of hi^ life, for he would entertain us 
with Methodist songs from memory (as he could not read 
or write) by the hour together — the only recognition of 
Christianity I found in all this benighted region. Though 
at least three-score-and-ten, he assured me he intended to 
marry ere long; and, when I interposed the objection of 
his want of a suitable lodging place, he quickly replied, 
"Any woman who didn't love him enough to sleep with 
him under his cart, wasn't worthy of him." My more 
extended acquaintance with "Crackers" of the feminine 
gender convinced me he would not find much trouble in 
pairing himself if he should seriously pop the question. 

While I was absent a "Cracker" boy stimulated Fred's 
gastronomic propensities by the offer of some eggs, which 
luxury called to mind the sugar syrup in the bottom of 
Five-Mile Creek. The temptation to try for it was too 
strong to resist; so, putting all his provisions inside of 
Mr. J.'s for fear of the hogs, leaving both ends of the tent 
open for them to walk through, rolling up all the clothing 
with tlie carpet-bag knapsack containing onr arsenic into 
a bundle and putting it on the table I had extemporized 
for skinning purposes, he took his gun and trudged to the 
creek, and was delighted to see the jug sitting bolt up- 
right on the bottom, but too deep do vn to reach with 
arm or stick. Though the water was very cold, in a trice, 
stripping and diving for it, he was overjoyed to find the 
water had not leaked in to dilute it. And so the luxury 
we hadn't, we had. Securing a couple of herons, and 
this time firmly retaining hold of the coveted jug, he re- 
traced his steps to the camp with beatific visions, which 
were destined to be dashed to the ground when he came 
in sight of it. The table lay flat and everything was scat- 
tered around, with the hogs making merry with all the 
women in the cabin 300ft. distant had not saved, as they 
heard the table fall. Fortunately, both forom-selves and 
the hogs directly, and indirectly for our continuance on 
good termr. with the Crackers in the settlement — for the 
hogs were common property — the women saved the 
a: s 3nic before the creatures had penetrated to it. Having 
righted things and carefully potted two bones of a deer 
for soup the next morning, seeming the cover beyond the 
possibility of a hog's snout reaching the mest, he lay 
down to sleep. By 4 o'clock in the morning the hogs 
routed him out. but the pot containing the soup meat was 
seemingly untouched. All preparations being made, the 
pot was opened, when, lo, one of the two bones was miss- 
ing! Though every necessary caution had been taken 
against the insertion of a hog's snout, none had been 
taken against a coon's snout or a 'possum's paw. Scend- 
ing his third day alone in skinning birds and contriving 
better arrangements for protection against the hogs and 
"varmint," he lay down to sleep at dark, only to be 
aroused by my return at midnight. Little sleep, how- 
ever, had either of us, so annoying were the hogs, and 
we decided to quit that locaUty as speedily as possible. 

Having accomplished the desideratum of the trip, in see- 
ing the lake and disabusing naturalists of its pretensions 
as an elysium for them, we were all at sea as to future 
plans, for the second object of our trip was still in abey- 
ance — the securing of specimens of rare birds and their 
eggs, and a study of them in their haunts. Our wily 
"Cracker," ever on the alert to make money out of us, 
honestly or dishonestly, suggested our camping for a few 
days at a "heronry" a day's tramp into the heart of 
Alpatiokee Swamp, known only to himself and the In- 
dians, but impenetrable, except by a boat, on account of 
the deep water and the cypress-knees. He also informed 
us that three miles down the creek near which we were 
encamped there was a flat-bottomed boat, just adapted to 



-11 

our need, which the owner would sell at a reasonable 
price. So Tom was dispatched with the oxen to bring it. 
Toward night he returned, saying it had lain ui)on the 
bank so long, drying in the sun, that lie could thrust his 
hand between every plank. Suggesting to him tliat we 
would take it to pieces and re-nail and re-caulk it, 1 went 
back with him, and bringing it to the camp we set about 
the operation. As there were neither sawn boards nor 
nails in all the settlement, we worked very carefully to 
save what we had. For calking we used the lace fibre of 
the palmetto leaf besmeared with tar, which we tried out 
of the pine knots by smothering them in an oven made in 
the gi'ound. When finished we had a scow twelve feet 
in length, four feet wide, turned up two feet at each end, 
with a gunwale of eiglit inches — the frail bark that sub- 
sequent experience proved was to save us many times 
from the jaws of alligators and a watery grave. 

Having bargained with Mr. J. to take us with his ox- 
team to the heronry and return for us in ten days at so 
much a day, we had our luggage all ready for him to 
load into the scow soon after daylight, anl requested 
him to drive about 100yds. to our camp for it. As the 
heronry was beyond his house from the camp he refused 
to come or even to lend us the least assistance in getting 
our heavy packs to the team, saying "he bargained to 
start from his house." As before suggested we knew it 
was well not to arouse the tiger in him, and so we toted 
them ourselves to the scow, he gi-umbling all the time 
that we were delaying him. About 9 o'clock we got off, 
but were ourselves got off by our teamster's insisting 
upon a long tarry at each Cracker's hut we passed within 
the first five miles. By careful balancing of our load we 
managed to ford almost to swimming Ten Mile Creek 
and keep our powder dry, and soon after entered the 
Flats, showing only a water horizon with an occasional 
island a few feet in diameter, on which from one to half 
a dozen tall pines were growing with a thick gi'owth of 
underbrush — excellent rendezvous for panthers, wildcats, 
possums and land snakes, wild turkeys roosting in the 
trees. To wade knee-deep was the work of the day, care- 
fully avoiding the dreaded moccasins, which, lurking in 
the tussocks of grass, "strike their envenomed fangs 
deep into the leg ere the traveler is aware of their pres- 
ence." Plodding on wearily after the cart, as the safer 
position through the fright to the snakes occasioned by 
the paddling of the oxen, we came to a grassy plain a 
mile in width, from which the drying-up waters had re- 
ceded, but revealing midway across it a creek nearly 
waist-deep with perpendicular sides. But my spade soon 
changed their steepness to a slope, and the faithful oxen, 
accustomed to rushing through a stream, landed all safe 
on the other side. 

Two or three such, but with sloping banks, we met in 
tlie course of the day, and one altogether too deep to wade 
conven'.ently; but to my request that we ride over, our 
teamster on the cart only replied by pouring out a volley 
of oaths, and urging the cattle across before we could 
come up with him. Thus alternating between strips of 
marsh and wide wastes of water, we at length discerned 
on the horizon a cypress clump towering up like a "blue 
mountain." "That is the heronry," exclaimed our guide, 
"but there is no camping place nearer than this island 
clump of palmettos near by." "But how far is the heronry 
from here?" "Perhaps four miles." "And do you expect 
us to wade this long distance twice a day for ten days and 
carry our game?" "Certainly." "Then take us right 
back to your house." After much persuasion he was in- 
duced to go on and run the risk of finding a nearer camp- 
ing island. At length we found one less than fifty feet 
across, with considerable dead wood upon it, which our 
teamster said was not over a mile distant from the heronry, 
and was absolutely the nearest spot of dry land to it. 
Careful observation afterward proved it to be not less 
than two miles. Cutting a path through th" dense pal- 
metto scrub bordering the island, we unloaded our traps 
from the scow, and left Fred to put things to riglits for a 
ten-days' camp-keeping, with the caution to be careful 
about setting the dry leaves afire, while the teamster and 
myself hastened on to launch the scow near the heronry. 
This effected, we noticed a fine camping island not more 
than a quarter of a mile distant; but it was too late, as all 
our luggage was two miles back. Nearing the camp on 
our return, Fred was seen repeatedly hurrying out into 



the water and back again, as though in trouble. It seems, 
notwithstanding our precaution, the fire had got the 
upper hand of him and was spreading, and he was lug- 
ging the powder and provisions out of the way of danger 
to an extemporized platform of sticks he had constiiicted 
in the water. Further examination proved the soil to be 
peaty, and suggested the danger of subterranean combus- 
tion, and such a possible thinning of the crust as to refuse 
to bear our weight some night, with the result of tum- 
bling us, powder and all, into a mass of smouldering em- 
bers. To avoid this, we encircled our hearth with a trench 
and daily supplied it plentifully with water. 

To obtain filtered water for culmary purposes, we dug 
a shallow well a few feet within the margin of the island 
on the opposite side of our entrance, which soon filled 
with water percolating through the peaty soil. This, 
strained from the insects and small lizards continually 
tumbling into the well, served our purpose satisfactorily. 
Having thoroughly beaten the ground within and around 
our tent, to frighten away any ground rattlesnakes, 
scorpions and such like vermin as may have been lurking 
beneath the leaves, we commended ourselves to the care 
of Him who never slumbers nor sleeps, and lay down to 
rest at dusk. Excessive fatigue quickly invited sleep, but, 
the nights being moonless, for how long time we were 
unconscious I cannot say, when we were awakened by 
such deep bellowings within a few feet as made me think 
at first some bulls of the cattle herds ranging all over the 
country had come into camp near us. It was our first ex- 
perience of the full-toned bellowing of alligators so near 
us, and it was a question whether the savory viands of 
our evening repast might not be attracting th'em to our 
limited quarters. The thought was not pleasant, nor 
made less so by the su, den chiming in of the most horrible 
throttling sounds that ever grated upon human ear. I 
have not been unaccustomed from my youth to the 
death rattle of the dying bedside, or the gasping groans 
of the earlier slaughter houses; but in this medley of 
sounds that filled our ears, there was a perfect nondescript 
anomaly to me. Later experience leads me to suppose it 
was the dragging under of a large bird, perhaps the water 
ibis, by an alligator, as there was much splashing of 
water commingled with the shrieks and gurglings. But 
tu'ed nature would assert herself, though only to be dis- 
turbed again by the distinct, but stealthy, tread of some 
animal close to our canvas. Is it a panther? is it a wild- 
cat? is it a coon? is it a possum? we whispered to each 
other. At length it approached my head and tapped the 
canvas watliin 6in. of my face with its paw. I tapped 
back, when it bounded away, but with so light a bound 
that I was convinced it was not larger than a wildcat or 
a coon, and felt no further alarm. Waking at daylight, 
we found abundant tracks of a wildcat in the soft mud 
on the margin of our island , and a flock of turkey buzzards 
roosting directly over our heads, both indications of 
marauders warning us to put our things in order for safety 
before starting for the heronry. 

Strapping on my tin knapsack containing our lunch, 
with gun in left hand and a pala etto stick 7ft. long in 
right, with which to slap the water to frighten away the 
moccasins, and in our high-topped boots, we started, Fred 
carrying his gun, two tin pans and a tin cup, and a board 
for the purpose of making a seat across the top of our 
scow. We had hardly left the camp when the w^ater 
poured into our knee-top boots, adding greatly to the 
weight we had to carry. Frequently my slapping the 
water would scare up a moccasin, which, "striiing an 
attitude" for striking, would await our nearer approach 
with threatening fangs. Disabling it by a blow of the stick, 
I was on the alert for another. Carefully taking our 
bearings that we might not get lost on om- return, we 
came in sight of the gunwale of our scow just peeping 
above the water, it having sunk during the night. Cau- 
tiously approaching it, lest it might shelter imderneath 
the dreaded reptile, I aided Fred into it to bail it out, 
while I proceeded to cut away the marginal imderbrush 
and make a path for pushing the scow into deep water. 
On starting, I had forgotten to take my stick, in my en- 
thusiasm at the sight of the flocks of spoonbills and 
herons flying over the swamp; but ere I had taken ten 
steps, pausing in the water half knee-deep to watch their 
movements, I looked down and saw just beneath the sur- 
face the largest moccasin I had hitherto seen, crawling 



12- 



between my legs. Instantly becoming motionless and 
telling Fred to keep (juiet, I watched it "drag its slow 
length along," till its tail was a foot to the rear of me, 
and tlien showed it to Fred, whose blanched countenance 
would hardly permit him to exclaim, "Are you bitten?" 
I think I could sketch the markings on that snake's back 
with accuracj- to-day, ten years after the occurrence, for 
I am sure I seemed to have amjile time to examine them 
before the end of that tail sho>ved itself. 

Anticipating some trouble with the scow, for some of 
the boai-ds I used in repairing it were not straight-edged, 
I had prepared myself witli palmetto lace, and with my 
hatchet and knife recalked it, so that, should we bail it 
every few minutes we deemed it might be safe, and so 
pushed it through my path into deep water. 

Now for the results of all our toil, e.xpense and danger, 
and, thanks to a kind providence, they are speedily 
realized. Hardly afloat and a roseate spoonbill rose from 
its nest and perched beside it. Fred sliot her vvhUe I 
poled the scow in all haste, as, the moment it struck the 
water, watchful alligators made for it on every side. We 
triumphed and secured it, and then Fred climbed to the 
nest amid the filthy branches while I kept the scow im- 
mediately under him, lest, falling from a dead limb into 
the water, he should himself be gobbled up by the alliga- 
tors, who were watching the ope.ation to the number of 
at least half a dozen. Three eggs were secured and iden- 
tified. Bailing out our frail scow, I pushed it among the 
cypress knees, botli excited to the highest pitch, as the 
birds kept rising from their nests, and, circling in the 
gleaming sunlight displayed their roseate hues to the 
best advantage. Soon another falls a victim to Fred's 
unerring aim, but alas, drops right into sn alligator's 
mouth, who goes to the bottom with it in a trice. "Fred, 
lay low and I'll have thatbu-d yet." "Nonsense, it'sdown 
the alligator's maw by this time." " We'U see," I replied, 
and pushing the scow over the spot of engulf ment, I 
could plainly see about six feet deep the pink hues of the 
spoonbill as it was held down by the alligator. Two or 
three thrusts of my pole so astonished the brute that he 
let go the bird, and it now graces the Museum of Brown 
University. Besides the spoonbills, there were by the 
hundreds, the different species of egrets, herons and 
ibises. Having identified the eggs of the different nests 
by carefully noting what birds flew from them, and 
secured about fifty in all, besides as many birds as we 
thought we could skin before dark, we left our scow in 
the marsh outside and returned to camp carrying our load 
of about fifty pounds each, wading every step of the two 
miles witli our boots full of water. 

The next day being Sunday we spent in camp cook- 
ing and wishing we might hear from home, as no 
letter had yet reached us. About 2 o'clock Mr. J. rode 
into camp, horseback, with letters for both of us, and 
said he had a good chance to trade with the Indians if 
he had silver. So I accommodated him with $15 and 
engaged him to come for us in nine da3 s. Wandering to 
the further side of our 50ft. island for meditation the 
thought suddenly struck me what should either of us do 
if the other should perchance be killed? Until that 
moment such a possibility had not occurred to me, and I 
felt the cold shudder creeping over me till I had worked 
out a plan that seemed feasible for preserving the re- 
mains in such an exigency. My plan was to sew up the 
body in our stout tent cloth and my India rubber blanket 
and suspending it in a tree, the survivor find his way 
back to Mr. J.'s as best he might. In cas3 of severe in- 
disposition or maiming only the problem was less easily 
solved, as the indisposed or injured could not be left 
alone. Considering all the risks I began to regret there 
was not a third member of the party, and I resolved then 
and there that I would run no such risk again. 

On our third return to the cypress-slue, while Fred was 
bailing out the scow I was attracted toward the margin 
in an effort to get within gunshot of a spoonbill circling 
overhead. Was it indirect vision or was it God's over- 
ruling providence that caused me as I raised my gun to 
fire to look down instead of up to see that I was witliin a 
gun's length of the snout of a 10ft. alligator half c n- 
cealed in the water, but whose jaws were slowly opening 
to close about my limbs with a snap defying any meclian- 
ical motion for quickness. To pour the contents of three 
chambers of buckshot into his side just back of the fore- 



leg was the work of a moment. As he rolled over on his 
side we left him for dead, but returning to the spot tliree 
hours later he was gone. 

We often found on the same tree eight or ten different 
kinds of nests, and observed that no nest was ever left 
vacant when undisturbed — one mate instantly taking the 
place of the other — as a regular system of robbery was 
constantly carried on between the rapacious hawks and 
crows, and the inoffensive herons. The slue was not 
very extensive, and after robbing the lower nests from 10 
to 20ft. in height, and shooting the owners, we turned 
our attention to those nests from 30 to 40ft. in heiglit. 
On the fourth day Fred's shoulder became so lame from 
climbing he could hardly raise his arm and was forced 
to exchange work with me. Unfortunately we had no 
climbing irons, but fastening mj' claw-hatchet securely 
to my wrist and carefully testing the strength of every 
limb with a pull upon it before trusting my weight to it, 
I succeeded in mounting higher than I had ever done on 
trees, since the venturesome period of childhood. It was 
not a pleasant siglit in my elevated position to see a dozen 
heads of alligators with pop-out eyes watching all my 
movements, and I knew that a treacherous branch might 
fui-nish them with a feast. Merely throwing them down 
a stick would start them out of their lurking places, and 
bring into display their activity in the water, as well as 
their flexibility in winding in and out among the half 
concealed cypress knees. The climber let the eggs and 
youuK birds down by a string in a nandkerchief to the 
one remaining in the scow. 

One of the Crackers in the settlement happening to be 
at Fort Capron when the semi-weekly mail arrived by 
sailboat from Jacksonville, he undertook to bring our 
second batch of letters to us with a package of my 
photos for which I gave a sitting the morning before I 
sailed from the North. But after searching for us two 
days he gave it up, and delivered the letters to Mr. J. to 
bring to us when he should send for us. Another Cracker 
learning that we had taken a scow to the heronry laid in 
with Mr. J. to direct him to it that he might avail himself 
of our means of navigating the slue to secure egret 
plumes, which were in great demand for ladies' bonnets. 
When half way back to our camp on the fifth day, we 
found him wading toward us. Joyfully welcoming him 
he returned to our camp, but as our tent was hardly large 
enough for Fred and myself he slept outside rolled up in 
his blankets. 

We frequently saw deer feeding in the open water- 
prairie, but as there was no cover for still-hunting were 
unable to secure any. 

Our constant firing had either killed off or frightened 
away the more timid spoonbills, so that Fred and the 
"Cracker" decided to take night and morning rations and 
spend the sixth night in the heronry to secure egrets as 
tLey should come in at night from their feeding grounds 
o'- go forth in the morning — thus leaving me alone at the 
camp for that night. It was a new experience for me, 
although I had become accustomed to otrr nightly 
serenade medly of alligator bellowing, wUdcat yawUng, 
frog peeping, turkey gobbling, heron screaming, owl 
hooting and every other kind of unearthly sound pertain- 
ing to a wilderness swamp. The death rattlings of 
alligator or wildcat victims were frequently repeated on 
every side of me, and about midnight I was aroused by a 
second visit from our prowler of the first night. Again 
he tapped the canvas over my head as though clawing it, 
and bounded away with a heavy tread as I tapped back. 
Determined to identify the creature and, if possible, 
secure it for the museum, I hastily lit my dark lantern, 
and lifting the side of my tent, saw a little way off in the 
darkness two eyes gleaming upon me. Fearing to shoot 
my gun lest I should alarm my companions two miles 
distant, I fired my pistol at the eyes, with only the effect 
of eliciting a yell and a bound into the thicket. I was 
soon asleep again, not waking till long after sunrise. 
Fred and the " Cracker" retm-ned toward night well laden 
with birds and plumes. Our provisions growing short, 
we sent the "Cracker" into the settlement on the morning 
of the ninth day to hasten Mr. J.'s coming for us, as we 
had only flour enough left for one meal, nine eggs and a 
little coffee. Our spoonbill carcasses being all gone, we 
were forced to eke out our larder with white ibises. 
About noon the next day Tom arrived with the team. 



-13 



and after loading on to the axles the scow, we filled it 
with our luggage and started for civilization, such as it 
was. AVTiUe on the island Fred was stung twice by 
scorpions, but our bottle of hartshorn brought quick 
relief. About dark some of Tom's family met him, and 
they lield a long consultation apart from us. As yet Tom 
had no reason to suppose I knew anything about his being 
one of the murderers of Mr. Lang, but I saw from their 
countenances there was trouble brewing for them. When 
he returned to the team, I put tn as cheerful a counten- 
ance as possible and commenced joking him, but he had 
no heart for my je.sting, and I left him to his forebodings, 
which were not unfounded, as the sequel will show. 

Once more encamped ou the old spot, we hoped, as we 
bunked for the night, the thievish hogs had forgotten us 
during our ten days' absence, but were wofuUy mistaken, 
as our frequent alternations of "Shoo, shoo, "and snatches 
only of dozing without real sleep proved. While break- 
fasting we were planning how to provide the grub neces- 
sary for carrying out a plan proposed by our C: acker vis- 
itor at the rookery for the next ten days, to the effect that 
we should proceed to a locality on the coast called Fort 
Pierce, four miles south of Fort Capron, where he had a 
boat, and camping there let him supply us with shore 
birds and fish in such numbers that we would be kept 
skinning and preserving all the time till we were ready to 
say "halt." 'This plan would cut us loose from Jlr. J., 
who, subsequent experience showed, was not quite ready 
to let the goose that was laying the golden egg for him 
fly away. So he and oiir new parasite, whom we will 
hereafter call Jim, came to our camp with many protes- 
tations of interest in our success, and proposed a post- 
ponement of the ten days' shore hunting and fishing for a 
ten days' trip, more or less, to another rookery two days' 
distant, much larger than the one we had just left, and 
bordered by a pine hummock affording good camping 
ground immediately upon its shore. As it was yet early 
in the season for gathering some kinds of eggs, we 
snapped at the bait, and, sending off Tom to Fort Capron 
for replenishing our larder, spent the day in recaulking 
our scow and packing the material we had left to dry in 
the loft of 3Ir. J.'s log s'able. Vermin of some kind, de- 
spite the a-senic, had ruined my rattlesnake's skin, 
leaving me only the head and rattles. The mammal and 
bird skins were on the eve of moulding from the exces- 
sive dampness of the nights, and it was becoming a serious 
question whether we had not better get out of so swampy 
a region, to save what we had already secured at so great 
an expense of fatigue and money. To leave a cherished 
plan unaccomplished had not been tlie experience of my 
life of nearly three score years, and I also felt some 
responsibility in reference to introducing my young com- 
panion of less than a score to such an unfortunate future. 
After another sleepless night through the unwelcome vis- 
itations of our porcine tormentors, we repacked the scow 
placed upon the ox-team axles, and bade a final adieu to 
the settlement on Ten-Mile Creek, with no regret, though 
in Mrs. J. we had found a true-hearted woman, who, alone 
of all we had met in the settlement, had manifested 
towai-d us the least spark of unselfishness. 

In the outgoing of this trip, Mr. J.'s Uttle son of ten 
years accompanied us, and enlivened the monotony of the 
tramp by his cheerful and unsophisticated nature, often 
plying me with questions concerning Yankeeland that 
made me grieve to think so bright a lad was being raised 
under such outlaw influences. An incidental remark, as 
we were fording a deep stream, whose quicksand bottom 
threatened to sink oxen and load out of sight, that in my 
country I had often driven oxen with a load of wood 
across a pond without sinking an inch, so taxed his credu- 
lity that he called upon my companion for confirmation 
of the statement. He had never seen a flake of snow or 
a film of ice, and no kind of illustration at our command 
could make him comprehend the fact. Dressed only in 
shirt and trous;rs, he scrambled around in the briers and 
saw-grass with naked feet as fearless of harm as though 
rattlesnakes and moccasins were as unknown in that re- 
gion as ice and snow. 

Camping soon after dark, we were too tired to unload 
our tent, and each chose liis own place and lay down 
upon a bed of palmetto leaves and went to sleep counting 
the stars. Our little "cheerfulness" went searching in 
the dark for water, and just on the brink of a pool felt a 



ground rattlesnake wriggling about his naked ankles. 
Nimbly jumping aside, he captured the reptile and brought 
it to me as a trophy. At early dawn we were off, and 
soon after sunrise crossed fresh tracks of deer, and not 
much further a panther's tracks. The panther should be 
hunted only with dogs, that his attention may be diverted 
from the hunter while he is drawing sufficiently near to 
make sure of a deadly aim. In the course of the day we 
arrived at the rookery, and for once realized all the ex- 
pectations raised by our Cracker guides. It was a cypress- 
slue of ten or twelve acres, with the exception of the end 
nearest us, of about two acres of clear water, the whole 
encircled with a margin ofdenseundergiowth twenty-five 
or thirty feet in thickness. So matted was the marginal 
growth it was impervious to the gaze beyond eight or ten 
feet, but on climbing a tall tree and looking over the 
underbrush , the clear water furnished to the sight a unique 
aquarium that uo other State than Florida, I imagine, 
can furnish. I counted one hundred alligators, from 
three to twelve feet in length, leisurely swimming in all 
dhections in the two acre space, and ceased counting. 
Some were dragging long rushes in their mouths across 
the water, evidently to construct their nests, which are 
built on the margm above the water. The alligator lays 
from fifty to seventy eggs in alternate layers of reeds 
and eggs, and leaves the mass of rubbish to putrefy and 
heat the eggs for incubation. Instinct brings the 
mother to the spot at the right time to tear open the pile 
and release the chicks on their first peeping. 

Selecting a place for our camp just far enough from the 
swampy undergrowth to feel safe from the visits of alli- 
gators, in two hours we had a path cut through the un- 
dergrowth with a corduroy bottom laid, along which to 
push our scow for launching in the clear water. Jlr. J. 
and his son returning with the team, tliis time we had 
with us Jim, an experienced hunter and boatman. Our 
experience in the first rookery led us to provide a boat- 
hook for this, besides poles and paddles. Our boat 
launched, we essayed to cross the clear water to the 
cypress-slue, above which we could see hundreds of 
spoonbills, white ibises and egrets sailing, while others 
were diving in and out among the branches. So far as 
Crackers or Indians knew, we were likewise the first ever 
to launch a boat of any kind upon these waters, as well as 
at the first rookery. To the alligators, our invasion of 
their hitherto undistm-bed domain must have been some- 
thing akin to the astonishment of the natives when the 
vessels of Columbus hove in sight. Fearless, they swam 
up to the gunwale as to a floating loj-, and but for the 
thumping of their snouts with our poles, they would evi- 
dently have boarded us and taken possession of our frail 
batteaux. A few charges of shot so educated t'nem, how- 
ever, that on the second or third day they were ready to 
give us a wide berth as we issued among them. As we 
boated among the cypress-knees, they were still more 
numerous and audacious, so that we found it almost im- 
possible to secure a single bird we had shot, a half dozen 
at a time springing from their lurking places the moment 
the bird touched the water. Another set of nest robbers 
than ourselves we found in the slue. The fishcrows by 
the liundreds were perched near the nests of the curlews 
and herons, just out of reach of their long necks; but the 
moment a bird left the nest, either to exchange places 
\^-ith its mate or because frightened liy the crack of our 
guns, these crows, so intent upon their plunder as to be 
themselves un terrified, would dart upon a nest, and, if 
the egg was small enough, fly away with it in its bill, or 
if large, pierce it with its bill and fly off ^\■ith the contents 
dripping away tlirough the air. Forced thus to change 
our tactics, either to secure birds or eggs, we made it a 
rule each morning to first shoot a number of crows as 
they flew out and in, and by occasionally getting ahead 
of the alligators secure a portion of them. Placing these 
upon the slanting bow of the scow, if our shot dropped a 
spoonbill or other bird, we would throw a dead crow in 
front of the nearest alligator making for our game, and 
thus manage, by giving away sometimes two or three 
crows, to secure one spoonbill. 

In crossing the open water on our campward trips, as 
we came out of the slue, our guide Jim was very expert 
in often hitching the boat-hook over the shoulder of a 
huge alligator headed the right way, and making him in 
his fright drag us across the pond, till, nearing the shore. 



he would let go by thrusting the hook forward and then, 
giving our steed a punch in the side, dismiss him. In a 
few days we had secui'ed all the spoonbills, egrets, ibises 
and snake-birds and their eggs we could well care for, 
and began to think of leaving the interesting place. Our 
provisions, too, were giving out, so I told Jim he must 
take our breecliloading rifle and go out and get us some 
venison hams. In about fifteen minutes after leaving us, 
we heard three shots in quick succession, and in a fe%v 
moments more he came in with the request that we go 
out and help liim bring in the hams. RepairLi:g to the 
spot, we found a buck and a doe lying as they fell, about 
ten feet apart, the third, a doe, running off with a broken 
shoulder, but f^und the next day a few hundred feet 
away, dead. Securing our hams, and a portion of the 
liver of each, we had jerked venison for days to come. 
In one of the livers I found the parasite fluke, always to 
be searched for in the hepatic system of herbivorous 
animal?. 

Toward night of the sixth day Tom appeared with the 
oxen and axles. Quickly converting our scow into a 
wagon-body we prepared to bid farewell to cypress-slues 
and 'gator swamps, weU pleased with our experience in 
seeing wild beasts and birds in their wild haunts. A 
day's tramping across pine hummocks and wallowing 
through intervening sloughs brought us upon an old 
army trail leading from Fort Capron on the Atlantic 
coast to Fort Bassinger on the Kissimmee. Following 
this with the forests on tire on both sides and trees fall- 
ing across it, which had to be cut away, we camped at 
midnight for four hoiu-s by simply halting and lying 
down on the ground and sleeping as best we might. Re- 
suming our march by earliest dawn we soon found our 
way impeded by thick undergrowth and crosswise logs, 
whicli had to be cut away for the team. The last six 
mUes being across a sandy hummock with the thermom- 
eter at 100 , for six hours man and beast suffered exceed- 
ingly from tliirst, and I began to long for the knee-deep 
morass as more desirable. Toward night we reached 
Fort Capron, and as I drew near was espied by Judge P., 
who had so kindly warned me as I was about to leave for 
Okechobee of the danger of trusting myself to the out- 
laws who alone inhabited the region besides Indians. 
The instant he recognized me he rushed out of his house 
and clasped me around the neck, declaring he was never 
so relieved in his mind, for he had about concluded his 
worst fears for our welfare liad been realized. 

At Judge P.'s I found Doctor P. and Erwin, who had 
returned but the day before from their circumnavigation 
of the lake, having had a very sorry and to Erwin at 
least a very unprofitable time, for he had suffered most 
of the time from chills and fever, which had now 
assumed a bilious form, and had so reduced Ms strength 
that he was unable to leave liis bed. At first sight of 
him, I saw that, if I would take him home alive, I must 
change my role and turn nurse. Tlierefore I cliose a 
camping place not far away on the left bank of a stream 
about one-eighth of a mile above its debouche into Indian 
River. Just across the stream a stalwart negro by the 
name of Trott had recently "squatted,'' having a reputed 
lawful wife and a concubine, whpse incessant quarreling 
made day discordant and night hideous, excexjt when the 
lord of the harem interfered and for the time turned one 
or the other out of the one-room shanty, as his fancy 
dictated. He was a native of the West Indies, and had 
served on a man-of-war in varied capacity, till he had 
acquired more or less skill as a navigator. "His strength 
was fully equal to that of two ordinary men, and if pro- 
voked would have been a dangerous man to deal with. 
As soon as possible I sent by boat for a hermit doctor 
across the Indian River, whose prescriptions dispelled the 
bilious tendency and gave me encouragement that in 
eight or ten days I might commence my homeward 
journey. Subsequent acquaintance with this physician 
revealed a singular history. Originally from Vermont, 
where he had long practiced medicine, he acted as 
surgeon during the war in a Western regiment, but 
instead of returning to his home at the close of the war, 
drifted to this frontier land, and doubtless under an 
assumed name commenced a hermit's life on the sandy 
island nearly opposite Fort Capron, whding away his 
time in fishing and corraling green turtles for the Savan- 
nah market. At this time he had corraled about fifty. 



14- 

weighing from 40 to 1251bs. I bought of him the largest 
as a specimen for Brown University Museum. Two 
months later, he embarked on a sloop commanded by the 
negro, to take his tiu-tles to Savannah, and was wrecked 
and drowned on the coast near Fernandina. 

Our camping place for the week proved beset with 
mosquitoes and fleas beyond anything we had experi- 
enced in the wilderness, utterly banishing sleep till 
after midnight, and sheer exhaustion compelled it. We 
could in a measure relieve ourselves from mosquitoes by 
filling our little tent, as we lay down, with the dense 
smoke of fat pine knots. But, for the fleas there was no 
relief, often observing them to jump from our blankets in 
swarms as we hung them out to dry in the morning. A 
second trip would suggest a bountiful supply of oil of 
pennyroyal with which to perfume our garments, and 
which is said to be flea-expelling. At this stage of our 
trip we began to suffer from the stinging bites of the 
black gnats, an insect so small as hardly to be detected 
with the naked eye, but whose bite sends a thrill through 
the nervous system altogether disproportionate to its size. 
To this annoyance, unlike that of the fleas, if one is pro- 
vided with essence of pennyroyal, there is no remedy. 

A heavy rain for three days and nights kept us under 
shelter most of the time, blowing the gi-eat quantity of 
eggs we had brought from the ''cypresti-slues" — our boat- 
man Jim meanwhile making a fish net of stout twine to 
use for seining the carp and small fisli that abounded in 
the stream near whose mouth we were encamped. 
When finished we set it a little way up the creek, ex- 
pecting in the morning to find a variety inclosed in its 
meshes. But instead, an alligator, or perhaps an otter, 
swam through it and tore it to shreds, thus in one 
moment ruining our boatman's work of two days. 

The chuck-wills-widow, the analogue of our northern 
whip-poor-will, enUvened the nights with its plaintive 
note. To obtam one, as they are utterly secluded during 
the day, Jim fa.stened my dark lantern to the top of his 
head and going toward the sound, soon detected the bird 
in the cimmerean darkness, by the shine of its eyes, and 
secured it, though badly mutilated by the shot, as he was 
unable to judge of his distance from it. As soon as the 
norther of three days had blowed out, Fred spent a day 
across the Indian River shooting terns, skimmers and 
oyster-catchers, which rose from the water in flocks of 
thousands, while I prepared my large tmtle for preserva- 
tion, poisoning the carcass and salting the meat for our 
larder. The follo\ving day, I hired the stalwart negro to 
accompany Jim and myself in a large boat to the Indian 
River Inlet, hoping to secure a sawfish. These fish come 
in f x'om the ocean tlu-ough the inlet to prey upon the schools 
of fish that abound in Indian River. Swimming c lose to the 
bottom, when they perceive a school above, they quickly 
elevate their toothed upper jaw and whii'ling it about 
in the school, mangle and kill many, to be eaten at their 
leisure. Our boat being provided with a coil of rope about 
100ft. in length, attached to a harpoon, we paddled gently 
where the water was about 5ft. deep, till discerning our 
game on the bottom, aV)Out li!ft. in length, Jim drove the 
harpoon completely through its body. Instantly the fish 
started for the ocean through the inlet, drawing out the 
line over the gimwale so rapidly as to make it smoke. 
The line having been made fast to the bowpost, when the 
end was reached, boat and all followed for half a mUe 
■svith a velocity so great that I quickly drew my hatchet 
from my belt and stood ready to cut the rope, if the bow 
gave indications of going under as the fish went into 
deeper water. At length he was wearied with the exer- 
tion, and slacked up, when we began to play the crea- 
ture, till worrying him on to a shoal place, I had a fine 
exhibition of the way he gyrates his saw when mutilating 
Ills prey. At length seizing a favorable moment as his 
head was raised out of the water, I planted a rifle-ball 
just midway between the eyes, when a quiver ran through 
his frame and he was dead. None judged him to weigh 
less than 8001bs. To whig him across the river to our 
camp, it was the work of an entire day to skin and pack 
the specimen for transportation. 

While at this camp one of the better class of citizens 
privately interviewed me to learn what I might have 
learned "diu-ing my forty days of intimacy with the mur- 
derers of JNIr. Lang, saying he had in his pocket a warrant 
received by the last mail from the Governor of the State 



\ 



- 15- 



f or the arrest of Mr. J. and Tom and a neighbor of theirs, 
who were understood to be the guilty parties; and sug- 
gested that, if I would leave interrogatories with a notary 
public before going out of the State it might further the 
ends of justice. Replying that I liad carefully avoided 
any allusion to the murder myself, yet Jlr. J., in our long 
tramps alone, had seemed to find relief in freeing his 
mind to me of his own accord, and had revealed enough 
to satisfy me who were the guilty parties,- yet I could not 
isetray confidence unless subpoenaed from Massachusetts 
as a hearsay witness. I have learned from newspapers 
that toon after I left the region a determined sheriff went 
into the settlement with a ijosse, and shot Mr. J. dead in 
his tracks wliile resisting arrest, but brought Tom to 
trial, who was, for the want of positive evidence, con- 
victed only of manslaughter, and died within a year in 
the State prison. 

In nine days Erwin was strong enough to be conveyed 
to a couch prepared for him in a small sailboat, and we 
started northward. It was our intention to start by 1 
o'clock at the latest, and were ourselves all ready, but 
Jim's laziness delayed us till 5. Had we not had a super- 
abundance of experience already in the thrif tlessness of 
the Crackers, we should have gone crazy at the needless 
delay. The greatest boasters of what they can do, but 
the poorest performers of what they promise, they are 
unique in their characteristics, and to the enterijrising 
Yankee a marvel of incongruities. Wlien the antiuo- 
pologist has satisfactorily traced the Hottentot and the 
North American Indian to their origin, he may turn his 
attention to the origin of the Florida Cracker, and he will 
find a much harder problem to solve. I have been a far 
more patient man since my trip to Florida than before, 
two months' experience in Crackerdom doing more for 
me in the cultivation of that grace than a half century 
previously. 

With a favoring breeze we made twelve miles by 10 
o'clock and camped on the west shore of Indian River on 
the sand, making Erwin as soft a couch of leaves as pos- 
sible beneath our mosquito bars, while Fred and myself 
lay down by the fire. By S o'clojk the mosquitoes and 
sand-fleas got the mastery of us and banished all sleep 
thereafter. For fresh water we dug a hole about 10ft. 
from the shore which soon filled with water percolating 
the sand, the coliesive attraction of the sand retaining 
the salt. Breakfasting upon broiled turtle steak,- we 
reached a brown pelican rookery on an island of eight 
or ten acres in extent. Our large boat grounding about a 
mile distant we all went overboard but Erwin , and pushed 
it for half a mUe. Then anchoring and pushing our small 
rowboat a quarter of a mile further we left it and waded 
as much more to behold the greatest cuiiosity of the kind 
I had ever dreamed of. The island was mostly covered 
with mangrove trees, a kind of banyan, whose limbs 
turn down from the height of 18 or 20ft. and take root, 
thus forming an uninterrujited canopy over a large part 
of the island. An acre, more or less, was covered with a 
clump of taller trees, in which blue herons were nesting. 
Hoping these might prove to be Wurdemann, I first gave 
my attention to them, but through the failure of Fred's 
gun to fire as the bird rose from its nest, lost my chance, 
to my great disappointment. Having secured the eggs 
we turned toward the pelicans. The mangrove is a slowly 
decaying tree,and though at some time this grove must have 
been thrifty — probably before the pelicans took possession 
of it — now every tree was barren of leaves and life. As 
we drew near every branch seemed covered with nests as 
closely as they could be packed — indeed so near oftentimes 
that a bird sitting on its own could easily dip its bill into 
the nest of its neighbor. On one tree not 20ft. high or 
more than G or 8ft. broad I counted twenty-two nests, all 
occupied. Acres of the ground also were so thickly cov- 
ered that it was easy to step from nest to nest across 
a full acre. In one nest there might be three or foiu- 
eggs, in no instance more, and in its neighbor young ones 
in different stages of growth. To these last the old birds 
were continually coming with fish in their pouches, 
which they disgorge into the capacious maws of the 
young by both dropping the lower mandible and the 
parent bu-d apparently contracting its pouch from the 
bottom so as to empty its contents into the pouch of its 
young. How wonderful the instinct that could find its 
own nest among so many thousand and also adapt its 



selection of fish from day to day to the varying size of 
its yoimg, for I saw the old feeding young nearly as large 
as themselves as well as those just hatched. Rather than 
climb the filthy trees we took our eggs from those nests 
on the ground, gathering a waterpail full in a few min- 
utes, always selecting the freshly laid ones, and might 
easUy have gathered barrels of them. Seciu-ing eggs and 
studying their habits, we commenced securing birds. It 
was an easy matter to get three or four in a range and 
drop most or all at a shot. At every crack of the gun 
thousands would rise from the trees, darkening the sun, 
but soon settle down again. After a while our continual 
firing so disconcerted them that they settled down by 
the thousands on the water around the island, forming 
semi-circular ranks with two or three feet between, as 
though platooned under leaders. For my own use I 
brought away eighteen birds, representing a series in 
every stage of pKimage, from a fledgling just escaping 
from the egg to the matiu-e bird. 

Fearing to leave Erwin longer in the broUing sun, we 
left the fascinating spot, and camped on a sand-bar 
at the mouth of St. Sebastian River, intending to spend at 
least three c'ays in camp, as famous large alligators are 
found in the brackish water at the mouth of the stream. 
On a hummock within a mUe a squatter had succeeded 
in cultivating, with great success, a plantation of oranges, 
bananas, mangoes, etc. Not to be hindered in skinning 
my pelicans, I hired the squatter's son to watch the 
mouth of the river for a large alligator. About 1 o'clock 
he came running to the camp, saying, "the biggest 'gator 
lie ever saw was coming down the river." Calling Fred 
and Jim, and snatching up our gims and rifles, we ran to 
the end of the sand-bar, two or three hundred feet away, 
and sure enough, judging from the distance between his 
snout and his eyes, he must have been at least fifteen 
feet in length. Just as we were lavmching the rowboat 
to make sure of him, a scream from the camp hurried us 
back, to find Erwin was suddenly attacked with the 
severest chill I had yet seen him have. Greatly alarmed, 
I ordered all things packed as quickly as possible, and in 
an hour we were mider sail with a stiff breeze, towing 
me in the rowboat that I might continue skinning my 
pelicans, as there was not room in the sail-boat with 
Erwin stretched at full length. The wind increasing, in 
less than an hour the tow-line broke, and before the sail- 
boat coidd be turned about, I was a half-mile astern, 
without paddle or oar. Recovered at last, darkness set 
in and we camped on a sand-bar. Rain setting in, Fred 
and Jim were well soaked in the course of the night, 
while I watched with Erwin in the tent without a wink 
of sleep. 

Next day the wind was dead ahead, and we were com- 
pelled to remain at camp tiU 4 o'clock P. M., when we 
started, and by 8 had reached Eau Gallic, where we had 
passed a night as we went out. Here I got Erwin into 
the shelter of a log hut, and as only thirtv-five miles re- 
mained to Sand Point, I planned to send him on the mor- 
row by another boat to that place, where he could have 
good nursing and a good bed, till Fred and I should 
arrive by the way of Banana River, a route twenty nules 
longer, but on which we hoped to get wliite pelicans and 
shore birds; but on awaking a rainless norther was blow- 
ing so furiously our boatman dared not go on. Wind- 
bound, I tried to think how I could turn the day to some 
account, having had to throw away all but four of my 
series of pelicans on account of the hot sun ruining them 
before I could skin them, through my hasty departm-e 
from St. Sebastian. Learning that there was" an Indian 
mound over across the Indian River, three or four mUes 
distant, I requested Jim to take me over in a boat, but he 
declined, saying, "No boat could live m such a sea." 
Another Cracker was willing to risk it for a dollar and a 
half. As the wind blew fortunately for crossing, though 
dangerously, I took my spade and trowel, and forbidding 
Fred to risk the voyage with me, I crossed over, the par- 
tially decked bow going under several times, but skill- 
ful management carried us across safely, though well 
drenched with the spray. Ascending the mound, about 
thirty feet In height, and well wooded with \vild orange 
growth, I succeeded in exhuming a perfect skeleton, hav- 
ing its knees bent to its chin, and facing the south— thus 
fulfiUing at the last chance one of the things I promised 
Prof. Jeffries Wyman I would try to do. "It is an HI 



wind that blows nobody any good," but Erwin's sick- 
ness seriously interfered with my finishing up Florida 
according to my plans; but as I could not see how I was 
responsible, 1 knew it was all right, and according to the 
plans of my heavenly Father, who is "too wise to err and 
too good to be unkind." 

The nortlier blowed out during the night and we started 
about 8 for Sand Pomt direct, giving up for his sake 
Banana River and the white pelicans. IJefore starting I 
gave Ersvin a morphine pill to alleviate the pain in his 
left side, the second time I had opened luy medicine case 
during the trip — the first being, as stated in the earlier 
part of the narrative, to give one of my phials of quinine 
to a man on Ten Mile Creek who camped near me one 
night with his wife and seven small children, two of them 
very sick witli fever. We parted in the morning, but he 
sent me word by a cowboy two weeks afterwai'd that my 
quinine saved the lives of his cliildreu. 

Having failed to secure aWurdemaun heron at the pel- 
ican rookery, I kept on the lookout for one, and diu-ing 
this day's sail espied a nest on the right bank, on a tall 
pine, which Jim declared belonged to Wurdemann. 
Sending him asho.'e witli the rifle, he brought me one of 
the old birds and a half -fledged young lie found under 
the nest. This specimen differs materially from the book 
measurements of the great blue heron, Ardea herodias, 
but so little in plumage that I was still in doubt, and 
obliged to wait till I reached Wasliington to discuss the 
matter with Prof. Baird and test the find. Night over- 
taking us ten miles from Sand Point, we were forced to 
camp again on the sand just opposite the lower end of 
Merritt's Island. Pitching my teuton the windward side 
of a rousing fire, and making as nice a bed of palmetto 
leaves for Erwin inside as I could, I gave the tent up to 
him and was gi-atified to learn ia the morning that he had 
slept well. To quote from a letter to my wife written on 
the sailboat after leaving this camp: "This encouraged 
me to hope that after a sail of two hours I might yet have 
the gratification I had been all week anticipating of hav- 
ing a quiet Sabbath at Sand Point, and revisiting that 
Sabbath school in the pine woods, whose acquaintance I 
had made on my outward trip, but the' wind was contrary,' 
and so we add another day of holy time to the last seven 
Sabbaths unrecognized entirely as such, except in our 
tent, and two of those necessarily spent in traveling with 
an ox-team in Okechobee swamps, as the journal of my 
sojourn in the wilderness will explain. This journal, 
by the way, is wholly in my mind, as, till leaving Fort 
Capron last Monday, I have had uo possible opportunity for 
writing except the few postals I have forwarded. Now I 
hope to send a postal almost daily, from the time I leave 
Jacksonville, and a letter weekly, giving daUy particulars. 
This will keep you posted on my movements as you could 
not have been whUe I was out of civilization, among 
murderers and ex-Ku-Kluxans, for at this distance I dare 
write so, while had I written out my experience in the 
v/ilderness, and it had fallen into the hands of the 
wretches prowling through that region, it might have 
cost me my life. Yet I was well treated by evei-y one, 
though I had to hear the most outrageous language 
respecting the 'Yanks.' I must .confess I felt safer in 
having my revolver under my head and our guns between 
us as we slept in the tent, according to Cromwell's in- 
junction to 'trust in God and keep our powder dry.' I 
always sleep the foreside of the tent, as Fred is a sound 
sleeper, while I usually wake at the tread of a 'possum 
within ten feet of me; still, into such a wild region you 
must go if you would study natTore first hand instead of 
second. Hence the reason so few naturalists do anything 
more than study books and take the observations of 
others and use them second-handed. To a great extent I 
have done so, but always to ray great dissatisfaction, you 
know. I now feel as though I had a riglit to speak and 
lecture on some subjects pertaining to Natural History, 
'ex-cathedra' authoritatively. I cannot but feel greatly 
pleased with my experience for the last two months as 
well as grateful, I trust, for God's preserving care. We 
are just landing at Sand Point, at 11 o'clock A. M." 

Learning that a man living a mile in the interior had a 
sijring sulky, I sent a lad for it to convey Erwin to a suit- 
able lodging place for the night and on the next day to 
the steamer at Lake Harney, twenty-two miles distant, 
on which we proposed to sail down the St. John's to 



16- 

JacksonviUe. Having thus disposed of my sick compan- 
ion, with gi-atitude for his convalescence, I chose a suit- 
able camping jilace for the afternoon and night, and 
leaving Fred and ovir guide to take our luggage ashore, 
went myself in seai-ch of a suitable team to transfer us 
on the morrow to Lake Harney. Having secm-ed a mule 
team I hastened back to find the last package just piled 
in a piazza of a store, when a furious thmider shower 
broke upon us. During my absence the mail-boat had 
come up from Fort Capron, bringing Dr. P. with tlu'ee 
other passengers. It being Sunday the propiietor of the 
store was absent, leaving for twelve men and all their lug- 
gage only the jnazza, (Jft.xSOft., for shelter. Feeling it 
was more important to preserve dry our luggage than 
ourselves we gave to it tlie benefit of our blankets and 
overcoats and took our own chance unsheltered for the 
most part with tlie ])robability of lying down at night 
drenched to the skin. Toward evening the rain ceased, and 
the proprietor of the store returning, he kindly oflfered us 
all lodging on his attic floor. My rubber blanket served 
to soften the couch of hard pine, and either it or fatigue 
induced sound sleep, to find on waking in the morning a 
cloudless sky. 

After cooking and eating our breakfast of coffee, pork 
and hardtack, I commenced packing the cart, while Fred 
skinned three shoveler ducks and a woodpecker he had 
shot before breakfast. This done, he lent his aid to pack- 
ing, but was soon interrupted at seeing a monstrous black 
hog run off with one of his duck skins. Giving chase, he 
overtook it in a boggy swamp, but had hardly deposited 
the skin in a safe place, when the same or another hog 
seized another duck skin, and in a trice chawed off one 
leg, thus spoOing it as a specimen for mounting. Will 
hog tribulations never cease, tliought I. Our things 
packed, my final experience in "Cracker" honesty r^as 
realized. Jim demuiTed to my construction of the bar- 
gain I had made with him two weeks before, to take us 
to Sand Point in his sailboat and there leave us, at so 
mucli per day, more or less number of days. He made 
out almost as large a bill for extras as the bargain called 
for, wlien there were to be no extras of any kind, unless 
providential ones, and such lie could not say there had 
been. After an hour of abuse, with charges of Yankee 
meanness and some threatening of legal redress, he 
calmed down and took his jaay at my first calculation. I 
then donated him my camp cooking utensils that had 
cost me about five dollars and were uninjured, supposing 
I could not possibly have any further use for them. 

At 3 P. M. we bade farewell to Indian River, having a 
boy of twelve for our teamster, who proved to be no ex- 
ception to an adult "Cracker's"' thriftlessness, for when 
we camped at dark in the woods, he had no cooking ap- 
paratus. However, boding our coffee in a lard can and 
our eggs in a peach can, and after di-inking the coffee, 
our hominy in the lard can for breakfast in the morning, 
as it could be handled cold, we lay down on the ground 
and looking skyward went to sleep, as often before, 
counting the stars. Rising at 3:30 in the morning, I ended 
my camping career of fifty-one nights, and exchanged 
my butternut hunting-dress and blue flannel shirt for 
broadcloth and linen, and donned my beaver in place 
of the worn-out straw hat which I left sticking upon a 
stake. 

At 9 A. M. we reached the steamer Volusia, gratified to 
find Erwin comfortably established on board, and at 2 P. 
M. sailed away from "Crackerdom"' down the St. Jolm's. 
Sharing a stateroom with Capt. B. — previous and subse- 
quent to the war, lighthouse keeper at Cape Canaveral — I 
learned from him some interesting particulars of his ex- 
perience during the war. On the secession of Florida he 
was ordered by the State authority to put out his light. 
He obeyed, and more. In the darkness of the night and 
the retu-acy of the surroundings, he took down the lan- 
tern and everything movable, and transferred all by a 
mide-cart to a lonely spot four miles distant, and safely 
hiding them, kept the secret during the war. At its close, 
when a U. S. vessel came down the coast to re-light the 
lanterns, he was inquired of for the equipments. Leading 
the officer to the hiding place, he brought all out to 
light uninjured, and for his discretion was recommended 
by the officer as a suitable person to continue in charge of 
the li.ght, and was successful in receiving the apjjoint- 
ment from Washington. He also informed me that early 



-17- 



in the war Jeffsrson Davis and h s Cabinet entrusted him 
with lieeping concealed in the inlet near the cape as lara:e 
a vessel as possible, to take any of them, in case of dis- 
aster, to Nassau, under British "dominion, being assured, 
if once there, they would be protected according to the 
Mason and Slidell jirecedent. During the last year of the 
war the Union gunboats found their way into the Indian 
River and captured the vessel, with much other contra- 
band material that had been accumulating as the safest 
place on the coast. On the siu-render of Lee and the sep- 
aration of Da\ns and his Cabinet, at their last meeting in 
the second story of the bank building at Washington, 
Wilkes county, Georgia, each strove to reach, by differ- 
ent routes, the rendezvous in charge of Capt. B., to make 
his escape to Nassau. Mr. Davis — taking his family, who 
had been boarding for some time four miles out of Wash- 
ington — followed the route leading through Taliafero 
county, and passing across the very plantation where I 
spent "the year 1841 teaching a private school, was cap- 
tured a few miles further south. Breckenridge alone 
found his way unmolested to the appointed rendezvous, 
and was enaled to escape to Nassau by Capt. B.'s fur- 
nishing him witli an open rowboat of large size, which be 
had fitted with a jury mast, Capt. B. showing me a gold 
dollar hanging at his watch chain, which he said Mr. 
Breckenridge gave him as he stepped aboard the boat, as 
the only remuneration he could offer him for his kind- 
ne-?. 

On our second day's sail down the river, at a wooding- 
up place, Capt. B. drew my attention to a woman stand- 
ing in a doorway, with a child in her arms, and said, 
'•That is the wife of Mr. Lang, who was murdered a few 
weeks ago in the neighboi hood of Ten-Mile Creek you 
have just escaped from.'" As the boat was about to start, 
I failed of an oppoitunity to learn definite particulars 
from her of the terrible tragedy, but this seems the proper 
place in my narrative to give the denouement. Less 
than a year afterward I found the followang in the Boston 
Transcript, but by whom written 1 know not, nor, 
though correspondence with true men in the vicinity of 
Fort Capron, have I been able to obtain other than con- 
flicting accounts of the arres s and trials: 

"Now that spiritualism is being brought so prominently for- 
ward, it is interesting to learn, from the CJiicago Tribune, that an 
ingenious attorney in Florida was the frst person to discover n 
practical value in it. His client, Tom Drawdy, was accused of 
murdering one Lang, and the jury was composed of eiglit colored 
and four ignorant white men. There was no doubt of the murder; 
there was no flaw in tl e evidence. But the counsel found one. 
He maintained that no proof ot Lang's death had been given, and, 
in all probability, he was still iiiding to obtain revenge. This made 
a commotion, but the main argument was yet to come. The gen- 
tlemen of the jury had heard that spirits were very common all 
over the North; that some had even been heard of in St. Augus- 
tine. Supposing the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and hanged 
an innocent man, what could they expect but that his spirit would 
haunt them through life, appearing with staring eyes and clammv 
longue, the death damp on his hands and the horrors o£ the tomb 
round about him ? Of course they would take the responsibility, 
and they did, by acquitting Tom Drawdy forthwith. Here, there- 
fore, is the first authenticated instance of the practical value of 
spiritualism, and it may be added that that value was of a dubious 
sort. 

JXrSTICE IN THE SOUTH. 

To thr Elinor nf the Tramcript: In the Traytseript ot the Uth 
inst. was an account of the trial of a man in Florida for murder, 
who was acquitted in the face of the evidence, by a spiritualistic 
dodge. 1 was in east Florida last winter, near the scene of this 
crime, and as the affair illustrates the life and manners of many 
Southern States, I will give the story as I heard it. 

Lang, the victim, was an honest, industrious German, who had 
itiade for himself a home on the Indian River, where he was 
living with his wife. He was a man of education and a natural- 
ist. His neighbors were Floridians, usually called "Crackers," 
ignorant and lazy, and hating Yankees. They en\Ted Mr. Lang 
the possession of a better plantation than they had, the result of 
his own industry, and determined to drive him away. So they 
got up a ttory that he had stolen cattle. As in the West the 
charge ot being a horse thief is the most fatal that can he brought 
against a man, so in Florida, where cattle and hogs constitute the 
sole i>roperty of most of the t'rackers, to charge a man with kill- 
ing his neighbor's cattle is to put him out of the protection of 
such law as may exist. 

Finding that they could not drive Lang away, they hired the 
Drawdys, a desperate family ot ruffians, to kill him, arid the deed 
was performed with the treachery belonging to that class. Two 
of them went to Lang's house and asked for dinner; it was given 
them, and they requested their host to set them across the river 
in his boat. He went witli them for the purpose, but did not 
return. His wife heard a shot tired soon after the party left the 
house, and as her husband did not return she went to look for 
him. The boat was found on the other side of the river with 
stains of blood upon it, but nothing was ever seen of Lang. The 



people in the neighborhood took no steps to biing the murderers 
to justice, and Mrs. Lang applied to the (jovernor of tlic State, 
who sent a posse from Tallahasse, who it appears arrested the 
men about three months after the murder was committed. It 
seems they have escaped punishment, a^i they have many times 
before for lesser crimes. 

Without affivming or denying the tnttli of these state- 
ments in their fullest extent, I am assmed from all I can 
learn that Mr. .J., the father-in-law and reputed instigator 
of the murder, was shot dead in his tracks by the sheriff 
while resisting arrest, as he had assured me he would be. 
rather than be arrested; that Tom died in the State's 
prison not long after incarceration, and that his colleague 
in the mtuderous affair w^as shot by the guard for insub- 
ordination in the chain-gang. 

Leaving the steamer at Tocoi I proceeded by a mule 
railroad to tlie old town of St. Augustine, bidding good- 
bye to my comprtnions Fred and Erwin, who continued 
on to Jacksonville and thence to New England by 
steamer. My familiarity with quaint old towns in 
Europe, hundreds of years ante-dating the settlement of St. 
Augustine, prevented my realizing the novel sensation so 
generally depicted by totirists on first beholding its dilap- 
idated walls and coquina-stone castle. A walk before 
breakfast on the long sea-wall and a ramble around the 
fort through its moat, and across the draw-bridge, with a 
hasty inspection of the ceiuetery and the old cathedral 
and square, satisfied my curiosity, and 1 spent the fore- 
noon, as the mule-car did not retiu-n to Tocoi till 1 P. M., 
in searching for objects of natm-al histoiw in the suburban 
lagoons. Taking the Palatkasteamer for Jacksonville at 
Tocoi I re-admired the remarkable river whose verv 
soui-ce I had found near Fort Drum at the northern boun- 
dary of Alpatiokee Flats, and had jumped across, but now 
^videning to two miles in extent. Conversing with a 
stranger on board, about three o'clock of the second day, 
and inquiring for Jacksonville time, he displayed an 
old-fashioned silver movable-cased watch, remarking, 
it was the best time-keeper on board, though a relic of 
his grandfather's day. Telling him 1 could match it 
as a time-keeper, 1 felt in my pants watch pocket 
for a silver-edged lepine watch that I had owned for 
more than thirty years, and which, then an old watch, 
was given to me by a watch repairer to replace one 1 had 
left with him to repair, but, through careless exposure at 
his window had, during his temporary absence from the 
room, been grabbed by a sneak thief with half a dozen 
others on the same rock, and successfully secured. But 
lo! the pocket was empty. I recalled changing my 
double-time lever watch the second morning before at 
St. Augustine from my money belt, where I had securely 
carried it through all my swamp experiences, to my vest 
watch pocket, and puttiiog the old lepine without a chain 
into my pants pocket. A little reflection convinced me 
that it had slipped out while gathering specimens in the 
suburbs of St. Augustine. So soon, therefore, as I arrived 
at Jacksonville, I wrote the postmaster at St. Augustine, 
explaining my loss and requesting him to send his clerk 
to certain points in the lagoon I designated, offering him 
a reward of five dollars if he should be successful in find- 
ing it and would send it to my home address in Massachu- 
setts by mail, carelessly neglecting to mention the num- 
bers on the case and the works of the watch for identi- 
fication, though 1 had them with me in my pocket book, 
and also at my home. On arriving at my home a month 
later, almost immediately my wife handed me a letter 
from the postmaster for explanation. He sent his clerk 
as requested, but he found nothing. During the evening, 
however, he overheard a negro man say his son had 
found a watch that day in the moat of the castle, and 
obtained his consent to give it to him if I would send on 
the numbers of my lost watch and the five dollars reward 
if the numbers I should send indentified it. Remember- 
ing my tramp through the moat I hesitated not to send 
the money with the numbers, and in due time received 
my watch in good order. 

At Jacksonville I disabused the minds of those who had 
told me when I started up the St. John's, that after a 
residence of years in Florida they had concluded that 
Lake Okechobee was a myth, and advised them to look 
out for the report of the exploring party who had circum- 
navigated it. Shipping home my collection of beasts, 
birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., by the sliortest route, I made 



a detour from Jacksonville to the southwest and north- 
east sections of Georgia between which I had spent the 
years from '38 to '43 as teacher. The little frontier village 
of '38 in the Lower Creek Indian coimtry of liardly more 
than forty log houses, where, at the age of 19, I made my 
debut as principal of a school in which I had pupils in a, 
b, c, as well as in advanced Latin and Greek, sending 
two of the latter class to college at the end of my first 
year of instruction, had become a municipality of r),000 
inhabitants. The Creeks had, after hard fighting, been 
removed west of the Mississipiji within five years of my 
location in the hamlet, and, with the exception of a few 
individuals, the character of tlie people partook of the 
worst elements of a frontier settlement. Seventy miles 
distant from any stage route, my only way of reaching 
it at that time was by an old negro and his mule cart, 
making the journey in two days and camping at the foot 
of a pine tree at night. My mail came once a week on 
horseback, the original star route I imagine, aud all the 
appointments pertaining to civilization were of the most 
primitive stamp, such as New England had outgrown a 
hundred years before. 

A conch shell blown at the Court House in the center of 
the village square, for it was the shire hamlet of the 
county, notified me on the morning of my first Sunday 
that a strolling Methodist preacher would hold services 
in the Court House at 11 o'clock. Repairing from my 
room just outside the village to the place of worship, I 
passed in the open square two faro tables where peripate- 
tic professional gamblers were fleecing a much larger 
gathering than I found inside the Court House. The 
preacher had his own Bi'ijle and hymn book and led all 
the services, giving out each hymn line by line, and 
starting the tune himself at each break. Durmg the first 
prayer I heard just outside a sudden out-burst of loud 
talking raingl d with fearful oaths, which made me open 
my eyes, but seeing neither minister nor worshippers in 
the least disturbed, I composed myself and concluded 
there was no disrespect intended for us. Before the ser- 
mon was half through the outside rabble had matured a 
plan for a horse-race, which was kept up with the usual 
accompaniment of swearing and disputing till long after 
our services were ended. Longer experience in the com- 
munity taught me that the occasional religious services 
enjoyed by a moiety of the citizens was not objected to 
by the gamblers and liorse-racers, so long as they were 
not interfered with in their mode of enjoying the Sabbath. 
Inquiring for some of my old pupils of thirty-six years 
before, I found the war had spared a few, but not one of 
half a dozen or more that I met recognized me, so 
changed was I from an almost beardless youth of nine- 
teen to an old man of fifty-five. 

In northeast Georgia, where for ne rly a year I was 
both instructor and colleague of an aged minister in 1841, 
I was equally itnrecognized by all who had known me in 
either capacity. It was in this region that I attained my 
majority and cast my first vote, on which was the name 
of Alexander H. Stephens, in his first candidacy for 
Congress. The intimacy we formed dm-ing the year I 
dwelt in his vicinity was never broken, but renewed 
from time to time, as circumstances brought us together — 
the last time bvit a few mohths before his decease in 1882. 

Desirous of visiting the site of my last school-house in 
Georgia I left the cars at a station within seven miles of 
it, and borrowing a horse from one of my old pupils, now 
a lawyer of middle age, I essayed to find it. My route 
required me to cross the same stream twice. At the first 
crossing I forded the stream by gathering my limbs cross- 
wise upon the pommel of the saddle, but found the sec- 
ond, by my recollection of its bed, more than swimming 
to my horse, with too swift a current to think of stem- 
ming, and so turned aside for the night to stop with the 
father of my pupil, who with his wife occupied the same 
plantation "of 3,800 acres I used to visit in '41. True 
Southern hospitality welcomed me as of yore, though de- 
spoiled of everyth ng but the naked land by the exig- 
encies of the war. Talking over the situation with the 
old gentleman he related tlie following war incidents: 

One morning one of his many t egroes accosted him, 
"Massa, we's all free." "Ah, how so?" "Massa Lincoln 
says so." Surprised at the statement, and knowing the 
blacks always had information of important movements 
at the North, sometimes days in advance of the whites, 



18- 

the master mounted his horse and galloped to town, six 
miles, to learn tliat no one there knew what the state- 
ment meant. In the afternoon news came l)y the mail 
from Augusta of Lincoln's proclamation freeing the 
si ves, and the master galloped back to his plantation to 
inform his negroes that Massa Lincoln's saying so had 
nothing to do with their freedom, as they were all under 
Jefferson Davis, and ordered them to their work as usual. 
Two j'ears subsequently the master was a4;ain surprised 
b-^ the same old negro saying (jne morning, "Massa, now 
we's tree for sartin." "Ah, how's that?" "Lee's surren- 
dered Richmond, and Jeff Davis has fled !" Again gal- 
loping to town, no such news had reached there, but at 
10 o'clock the mail confirmed it, and galloping back, the 
master blew the conch shell, that brought all his negroes 
in a trice from the most distant parts of the plantation 
into his yard, when he said to the scores before him, from 
the very spot on the piazza where we were sitting: "It's 
a fact, Lee's surrendered; you are all free, and now you 
must look out for your dinner. This last announce- 
ment to poor dependents that had never in their 
lives, from the youngest conscious child to the gray- 
haired old men and women, ever had a thought about 
providing their dinner, the regular cook of the plan- 
tation dealing out their rations at the appointed time 
each day all prepared, so took them aback that not a 
shout was heard or the wag of a tongue, but on the con- 
trarj', their very countenances of jet black grew pale 
with consternation. After leaving them to their reflec- 
tions for half an hour, the master blew the conch shell 
agaiir and told them he had been anticipating this result, 
so giving them a dinner, he related the following jjlau as 
the best thing for him and them — he lieing left with 
nothing but his land, stock and farming implements, as 
Confederate money wotdd at once be worthless. The 
oldest married negro could first choose twenty acres of 
land in any part of his thirty-eight hundred, and move 
his cabin on to it and make a home for himself; then the 
next oldest married man, and so on, and then the un- 
married could make their choice. He would also let 
each have a mule and a plough, and the use of his gin 
house and cotton press, and for his own support they 
should pay him a certain per cent, of what they got for 
their crop; or every one could quit the plantation and 
look out for himself. With the exception of one young 
unmarried man, all accepted his offer and moved their 
dozen or more cabins on to the land of their choice, and 
at the time of his narrating the circumstances to me, ten 
years afterward, every family was on the place of their 
first choo ing, with hardly an exception, and ever^-thing 
had gone prosperously with him, and for his own sake he 
would not have slavery restored for all his plantation. A 
second visit, eight years afterward, to the same plantation 
produced the same testimony from the considerate ami 
humane old master. 

Expressing my apjirobation of a beautiful peacock 
strutting in the yard, the generous old wife said to me, 
"Catch it and mount it for your museum at Brown 
University, as a present from me." In five minutes its 
life was forfeited to the interests of science. 

Having promised a gi-atuitous lecture in the village in 
the evening, I mounted my horse after dinner to return, 
a young man accompanying me a mile to the creek I had 
forded the day before, but the rain during the night had 
swollen it to swimming and also overflowed its banks on 
either side for more than 100ft. Observing on the right 
a high staked fence, extending within 20ft. of the otlier 
side, with the top rail just above the rushing stream with 
overhanging branches, I gave my horse to the young 
man to take back to its owner at his convenience, and 
mounting the fence, with the incumbrance of the pea- 
cock with its oft. tail and ISlbs. weight, and a tall silk 
hat, I walked the sharp edge of the rail by tlie aid of the 
slender overhead branches, thanks to the acrobatic prac- 
tice of my youth, till I readied the end of the fence, when, 
tossing the fowl as far toward the shore as I could , and hold- 
ing my watch and purse above my head, I followed, land- 
ing ill water only waist deep, instead of neck deep, as I 
feared. My companion on the opposite side, seeing me 
safe across, swung his hat and shouted, "A Yankee for 
anything and forever!" Replacing my watch and shoul- 
dering my bird, I plodded the five miles to the village, 
arriving just in time to change my wet underclothes for 



19 



dry, but for the want of another smt of outer garments 
was obliged to lecture in wet iiants. My neighbors and 
pupils of a generation before were, however, well pleased 
to hear t e voice of their old friend and teacher. 

Learning that an old college-mate was residing in the 
vicinity of Toccoa Falls in northern Georgia, I made a 
detour of 200 miles by rail to call upon him. These falls 
are of wonderful beauty, and with the present railroad 
facilities, are attracting hundreds of visitors annually. 

From Toccoa, Georgia, to Charlotte county, Vii-ginia, I 
accomplished by rail what took me by stage tlirough the 
same towns in December, 1841, from Monday noon of 
continuous travel, night and day, with the exception of 
Sunday, to Thursday noon of the week following. I was 
the only through passenger, and usually at night the 
only one, so that my trank was taken inside the stage 
for fear of robbers, and filling the place between tiie 
seats, made me a more comfortable couch. The rivers 
were all crossed by ferries, and one night, the lights of 
the stage having gone out, the new driver missed the 
path leading to the ferry, and found out his mistake 
when a sudden wheeling around of the horses upset the 
stage within twenty feet of the bank, waking me out of 
a sound sleep. Relighting the uninjured lamp by 
matches furni.shed by myself, we surveyed our- sur- 
roundings, and loosening the jaded horses, shouted for 
help. Soon the negro ferryman on the opposite side 
replied, and coming to the proper landing several rods 
up stream, soon righted matters for us. At another 
ferry the rope broke when nearly across, but as it was 
in the daytime, we soon caught by the overhanging 
branches and pulled ourselves vp stream to the right 
landing place. 

The cars leaving me in Vii-ginia five miles from the 
nearest of my old school-mates of 1833, I engaged a horse 
for two days' riding. When brought for me to mount, 
the bridle had no two parts a ike, one stirrup was of wood 
suspended' by a rope and the other of iron suspended by 
leather, and the horse himself was evidently a remnant 
of the cavalry of ten years previous, or more probably of 
the artillery or an ambulance corps. To my remonstrance, 
1 was told it was the best in the neighborhood, a most 
painful contrast to the blooded animals, with gorgeous 
trapjnngs. I used to ride on the fox hunts forty-two years 
l)efore in the same region. Arrived at the door of the resi- 
dence of my bchool-mate, she herself appeared, so un- 
changed in all the intervening time I coidd not help grasp- 
ing her hand with a school-boy's familiarity, and tighten- 
ing my grasp the more she tried to escape from it, while I 
was parleying for a recognition from her. At length, 
propriety suggested my rudeness, as she evidently began 
to be alarmed, and letting go my hold, I asked her tlie 
leading question, whether she could not recall events 
of forty-two years previous. "Oh, dear, am I so old," 
was her only answer, with a quick, ''but who are 
you?" "I am the little Yankee boy of the log school- 
house on your father's plantation;'' and then she herself 
seized both my hands involuntarily and it was my turn 
to leave the unclasping to her. The next moment tears 
came to her eyes, witli the sad exclamation, "Oh, that 
you should find us all in such changed circumstances 
from what you knew us in our childhood and would have 
known us up to the war. That hack of a horse you just 
rode up on and its rigging is a fair sample of how the 
war left us — my husband, a physician, and our two sons 
returning from the ranks on the surrender of Lee with 
not a cent between us all except twenty-five dollars I had 
contrived to seciure to myself and which my husband 
took to Petersbm-g to purchase me a calico dress, the first 
of any kind I had purchased in all the four years. In 
yonder shed is our carriage that, for the want of suitable 
horses and harness, has not been harnessed since the war, 
and every luxury of the kind forborne, with no prospect 
of the times being any better in my day." Such and 
much more was the sad tale I listened to during the three 
houi'S I stopped, before proceeding ten miles further to 
the residence of her twin sister, and two miles further to 
the residence of her brother, near the paternal mansion, 
where during their youth every luxury abounded as well 
as at their several homes, till the exigencies of war made 
Virginia the greatest sutferer of all the seceding States. 

Spending only one day and night between the three 
families, I rettxrned to the station and hastened on to 



Washington, to find, to my great disappointment, that I 
had not after all my effort secured a Wurdemann heron. 
Subsequent study of the species, however, proves my 
speiimen not to be the long-known blue heron, but a 
variety now lately determined to be the Ardea ivardi or 
Florida blue heron. 

Leaving Washington after spending one night, I reached 
my home on the evening of the last day of April, in a 
snowstorm that had been unintermitting during the day. 

The following extract from a detailed report of the New 
Orleans Times-Democrat Exploring Expe<lition through 
the Florida Everglades in 1884 will make a fitting close to 
our narrative. 

"When wo reached White Water Bay we had accomplished all 
we promised to do, and more than any man or men ever were able 
to do before. We are the tirst party of white men who ever pene- 
trated the Nortliern Glades, and the tirst who ever started from 
the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee and came out at the Gulf 
ot Mexico tlirough Shark's River, without diverging a mile to the 
east or west from their due south course. 

"In conclusion I sum up my observations of the Everglades in 
a few words: 

"It is a vast marsh, interspersed with thousands of islands 
small in extent, ^nd with few exceptions completely inundated, 
even at the time we explored them, which was during a very dry 
season. On the islands that were out of water there was but a 
few inches of soil covering the rocks. In my opinion, their drain- 
age is utterly impracticable, and, even if it were practicable, the 
reward for such an undertaking would be lands that could be 
utilized for no other purpose than as a grazing ground for stock. 
They are nothing more nor less than a vast and useless marsh, 
and such they will remain for all time to come, in all probability. 

"It would not be possible to build, or maintain if built, a tele- 
graph line along the route traversed by us, which statement is 
made in reply to numerous inquiries as to the feasibility of such 
an enterprise. A. P. Williams." 

I have designedly omitted in the foregoing narrative 
scientific names of specimens and specific descriptions, 
intending it only as an account of the adventures of a 
natiu-alist collector in the Everglades. J. W. P. Jenks. 

Bkown University, Providence, R. I. 



As a supplement to the foregoing narration, I may 
state that recent information gathe- ed during a late visit 
to the region, almost convinces me that Mr. J.'s unex- 
pected visit to our camp on Sunday was in pursuance of 
a plot between him and a neighbor for some evil ptu'pose, 
which was fiiistrated by that neighbor failing to find our 
camp, so deeply hidden as it was from the usual trails of 
the cattle rangers. My informers claim that after we 
left the State dark hints from some of the outlaws gave 
color to their regret that so good a prize had escaped 
them. Personally, I can but hope that their better ckiss 
of neighbors did them an injustice by drawing any such 
inference after our departure, though subsequent events 
akin to the murder of Mr. Lang do not perhaps warrant 
a conclusion as to their innocent intentions toward us. 

As to the trial of the mm-derers of Mr. Lang, personal 
witnesses of it assured me in my late visit that the ac- 
count quoted in the narrative from the Boston paper is 
substantially correct, and that the "spiritualism" dodge 
of the cunning lawyer secm-ed a verdict of manslaughter 
only, against the clearest weight of evidence in tavor of 
murder in the first degree. Tom's fate was to be punished 
so repeatedly in the Penitentiary that, at length, his 
powerfully robust frame succumbed to the lash and two or 
three years only sufficed to put him in his grave. His 
companion in tlie murder of Mr. Lang was shot by the 
prison guard while attempting to escape after some years 
of imprisonment. Mr. J. was arrested at his own table 
by a ruse of the sheriff and his posse, who were dining 
with him as pretended cattle-buyers. But escaping from 
jail before his trial, and removing with his family into 
regions still more remote, he was at last, through one 
who had been a Pinkerton detective, and who had been 
for two months playing the part of a cowboy and "hail 
fellow well met" with him and his neighbors, decoyed 
into an ambush through the pretense of the detective's 
wishing to trade horses with him. Though none but the 
detective was in sight while the negotiation was going 
on, suddenly Mr. J. became suspicious, and mounting his 
horse fled, while the posse in ambush fired, but only 
wounding him, though instantly killing his horse, which 
fell so quickly that his rider pitched headlong into the 
low fork of twin trees, and by the time the posse reached 
him he was dead with a broken neck. J. W. P. J. 



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