ENGLISH SNIPE.ENGLISH SNIPE.
We made one of our best runs that day. The weather was too perfect for us to stop for fish or birds, although we saw clouds of the latter rising up in the distance from the disturbed surface of the Sound. We ought to have gone to Hatteras, or Roanoke Inlet, where we had been assured by the residents the brant shooting was magnificent, but we could not lose such unusually favorable weather, and sped on and on through the seething waves, hour after hour, till when the sun was still quite well above the horizon, we ran through the narrow channel into the peaceful waters of Core Sound.
What a change came over the spirit of our sailing, from the boisterous violence and rough seas that beat our vessel’s sides turbulently, or followed us fiercely to the scarcely ruffled bosom of the small and shallow bay, only a few miles wide, and shut in on all sides by the land. We managed to reach Lewis’s Creek before sunset, where we saw a number of working boats going to find security for the night. When we had anchored among them, the fishermen told us that there were the usual kinds of salt water fish, although there was no tide in Core Sound other than that made by the wind. They said there was good oystering off the point of Lewis’s Creek, and next day proved their words. It was a wild spot. The only mark of human habitation being an old wind-mill, which stood on the point. The weird effect was further heightened during the darkness by the lighting of fires by the fishermen, who had no sleeping accommodationson their boats, and who went ashore for the purpose.
“Would you like to kill an English snipe?” called out Seth Green to me next morning from the shore, whither he had already gone with our boatman, Charley. I had been busy, or perhaps, if the truth must be confessed, sleepy, and had just come on deck.
“Of course,” was my instantaneous reply, the idea of any one not wanting to kill an English snipe being too ridiculous to entertain for a moment.
“Then get your gun, and Charley will come for you in the boat.”
In five minutes the doctor and I were both ashore, and in less than as many more we had put up and bagged our first bird. It seemed that Charley, who, as I have already stated, was an old gunner, had heard the bird as he flew over, and had seen him alight. He did not know that there were more than one, but we found quite a flight of them. The spot was not large, but it was evidently a favorite one. We had no dogs and went floundering about through the mud, but at every few steps a bird was flushed, and his appearance commemorated by the report of a gun or the cheery cry of, “mark!” It was a delicious episode in our trip, for no sport is more appreciated by the true sportsman than the killing of our gamest of all game birds, the stylish English snipe. In two hours we had bagged thirty-one. In fact we had killed them all, for if we did not get them at the first rise, it was easy to follow them up, as theyseemed so fond of the place that they would not leave it. After we had gone on board with our trophies, and while we were getting under way, we saw new whisps arriving to take the place of those which we had killed, as if they were informed of the event, and were anxious to profit by the disasters of their friends, even at the peril of their own lives.
Core Sound was full of wild fowl, of which many were red-heads and canvas-backs, and had we had a battery, we could have killed unlimited numbers. We had to do as well as we could with Mr. Green’s substitute, which, although better than nothing, was not at all equal to the proper machine. Neither had we time to wait. Florida was a long way off, and well we knew that, once there, we should have all the game we wanted; so as we struck another favorable wind, we did not stop at Barker’s Island, where the best shooting is to be had, but ran on to Beaufort. We had actually dawdled not more than three or four unnecessary days in Core Sound, before going into the narrow, shallow and difficult harbor of what was once the watering place as well as business mart of that section of the Southern country. The port dues are heavy, and I would advise the yachtsman to avoid it altogether and go, if he needs must go into any port, directly to Morehead City, which is rapidly appropriating the trade and fashion of its older rival.
There is a large business in oysters at Beaufort, and the civilization of moss-bunker factories has been introduced from the North. Fish were scarce,but we purchased some very fair beef at very moderate prices, eighteen pounds of porterhouse being sold to us for eight cents a pound. The town is a pretty one, and the next day being Sunday, we went to the colored Methodist Church, a thing that no visitor must fail to do, and heard some very charming singing. This was our first experience of the quaint, wild, and slightly barbaric harmony of the voices of the negroes, of which we were to hear a great deal before our return to the North.
Beaufort was the first thoroughly Southern town, with its fig trees in the open air, the Yupawn, or native Tea tree, the red-berried evergreen bushes, whose name we could not ascertain, and its genial air of Southern indolent happiness, which we had visited. We were sorry to leave it, and had Florida been only placed where it ought to have been, five hundred miles nearer New York, we should have stayed days if not weeks longer. But the time was flitting by, and still we were a thousand miles from our destination. So without more ado we put to sea. From Beaufort to Cape Fear there is such a bend in the coast that it is laid down on the charts as a bay. Being shielded from the terrible northeasters of the Atlantic, which reach no farther than Cape Hatteras, it is as safe for a small vessel as any part of the boisterous ocean ever can be. But I was glad when Heartsease got through the voyage. With care there is no danger, and the trip is not half as perilous a one as we are accustomed to take at the North, where we are at home, without a thought offear. There are numerous and very practicable inlets, and the yachtsman should make sure of getting into one of them at night. The same may be said of the stretch beyond Cape Fear. Treat the mighty ocean with the respect it deserves, and it will never illtreat you. On the charts the northern or old inlet of Cape Fear is laid down as closed by a bulkhead. This it is no doubt intended to be, to the discomfort of small sailing craft, but at the time I speak of it was open. Possibly it was only opened temporarily by a storm, and may be shut again now.
There were some birds in Bull’s Bay, but not enough to induce us to pause, as we were anxious to get the yacht to Charleston as quickly as we could. So we made the most of the wind and the tide, and anchored over against Fort Moultrie early in January. Does any of my readers care to hear how we enjoyed Christmas Day! If so, I will in that connection, and with the happy sacredness of that day in my mind, make a confession. In one of the opening paragraphs of this history I mentioned the fact that we had a stove, a cooking as well as heating stove, in the main saloon. I did not, however, acknowledge what I am now about to make public, that every one of the party, from the state-rooms to the forecastle, was a cook, and in the opinion of him or herself a most sweet and daintychef de cuisine. Aware of this divine afflatus, they were none of them entirely content unless they were exhibiting their skill, so both stoves were run to their utmost capacity, and as the appetites of the party were goodand daily growing better, a vast consumption of provisions was continually taking place. While each was at heart assured that their own productions were a little the best, and tempted the others to admission of the fact by the offering of special delicacies where delicacies were not needed, there was no one mean enough to repudiate the work of a brother or sister artist, even if it were ruined in the preparation or burned to tastlessness in the cooking. Christmas was by common consent set apart as the day on which each and every member of our briny household should cook whatever they found best in their own eyes. The store-room was thrown open and free liberty of selection was given to all.
To the male kitchen genius the most difficult article to prepare, is the most necessary one, bread. Within the realms of civilization the staff of life seems, as it were, to grow of itself. It can be found on every corner; stares in fat complacency at you from the shop windows on every block; there is never any dearth of bread so long as there is a penny to purchase it; delicate-minded tramps scorn it, and in every well-regulated household enough of it is thrown into the waste pail to feed another household of equal numbers. But at sea this is different, and when man, though he pride himself on the brilliant hue of his blue ribbon, is required to make good the deficiency, he is apt to come to grief. So the queen of our marine family announced that she would make a big batch of bread for that special festivity.
While no one could or would dare to dispute the ability of that lady to do well whatever she undertook, yet in the matter of bread making her methods were peculiar. In the first place she had to have the cabin to herself, and as bread has to be set over night, we were all turned out on Christmas eve and left to shiver on the deck. Then she has a way of strewing flour about in the operation till she covers the tables, the chairs, the floor, even the sides of the saloon and sometimes the cabin roof with dough or its ingredients. It was not five minutes after we were allowed to return, the “rising” having been made an accomplished fact and set away in a corner, before our hands, our clothes, our faces, and our very hair were covered with incipient bread. But worse even than that was the injunction that was solemnly laid on us under no circumstances to presume to touch the “rising” which had been deposited directly over the stove, and without moving which it would be impossible to get breakfast. As our lady was a late riser herself, and would never stir till she was assured through the state-room door that her breakfast was ready and on the table, the question of having that important meal was as complicated as getting the fox, the goose, and the corn over the stream.
One of the associate lady patronesses devoted herself to making biscuits, as the bread would not be cooked till dinner time. I evolved pancakes, the doctor compounded a hash, and altogether we began Christmas with such a breakfast as is rarely met with on the desert surface of the inland water communicationbetween the North and the South. Seth Green had reserved himself till, as he politely remarked, “the rest of you should be through your mussing,” then he began. But his efforts did not last long unmolested, he had split open a duck, a fat one had been especially selected for so unusual an occasion. This he had laid between the wires of an oyster broiler, then he opened the entire top of the stove and proceeded to broil it upon the hot coals. It is unnecessary to remark that such a proceeding evolved an amount of smoke that filled the cabin full in a moment. The rest of the party were busy at their breakfast enjoying the delicacies which had already been prepared, when they were fairly suffocated by this torrent of smoke and began to realize as never before the sad fate of the inhabitants of Pompeii.
“Seth” I exclaimed, “can’t you keep part of the stove covered so as to let some of the smoke go up the chimney?”
“Mr. Green, Mr. Green,” came from the ladies all at once, “please don’t smother us.”
“Smoke and the gas of cooking” gasped the doctor, his philosophy almost dissipated in it “are injurious at meal times, there is such a thing as being asphyxiated.”
“For heaven’s sake,” I implored, for by this time the condition of the atmosphere was unbearable, “do throw that duck out of the companion way.”
“Oh Mr. Green do stop cooking that horrid duck,” exclaimed our princess, “if you do not I shall have to leave the table.”
That last threat was too much, Seth could not bear to be ranked as an obstructive when he was accomplishing a culinary triumph which was to delight our gustatory nerves and establish forever his reputation as a cookist. He turned a reproachful face towards the party without showing the slightest sign of discontinuing his fell work, and with an air of bitter rebuke retorted upon us.
“This is the first time that I have done any cooking. All the rest of you have cooked as much as you liked. I have stood to one side and got out of the way and never had a chance, and now the very instant I cook a little duck you all make a fuss. I don’t think it’s fair. I did want a piece of duck for my breakfast and I picked out the smallest one for fear somebody would think I was greedy, and now you ask me to throw it overboard; it is almost done, and if you will only have patience for a few moments I will be through.”
His manner was more impressive than even his words, and no one had the heart to reply. We tearfully held our napkins to our noses to keep out the smoke and smell as well as we could, we coughed and choked, but we allowed him to finish. Unfortunately Seth believes in cooking a duck to a chip, and hence he was occupied longer than he had promised, but he was through at last, and then not only was he happy in the vindication of his culinary knowledge, but he had the satisfaction of bringing our ingratitudehome to us, by pressing on us choice morsels, which he offered in a delicate and forgiving way upon his own fork, and which we were fain to accept and swallow in the same fashion under pain of again offending him.
Nevertheless the duck was good, the biscuits were good, the pancakes were excellent, the hash was superb, every article of diet all day long, from the gorgeous breakfast to the gorging at supper, when appetite had been more than sated, were unsurpassable and we had a Christmas long to be remembered.
We remained in Charleston for two weeks. If the reader asks what we were doing all that time, let him go to the old time Queen City of the South, now apparently being displaced by her enterprising rival, Savannah; let him roam about her quaint streets and mingle with her hospitable people, and he will find out. There is much of physical and human interest in and around Charleston, from the live oaks on her Battery or White Point Park, and the moss covered trees of her famous Magnolia cemetery, to the oysters growing in thousands around her sea-wall, and which would furnish unlimited sustenance to her citizens were they not oyster surfeited. We stood and gawked at the tropical plants in full foliage, and at the orange trees in full bearing, in the house door gardens till the residents, unacquainted though they were personally with us, took pity and gave us the names of the plants and told us that the oranges were sour, none of the sweet varieties being able to grow so far north. We loafed around the marketwhich was an ever renewing delight to Mr. Green, who, before we left, had established a personal bond of admiration and friendship from every darkey fisherman who brought his cargo there. We fed the turkey buzzards, we ascertained that the fish about Charleston were, in their various seasons, mostly sheepshead, bass, the drum of North Carolina and channel bass of Florida,Corvina Ocellata; sea-bass, here called black fish, which are mostly caught by the negroes outside the bar in their open boats; sea trout, our weak fish; mullet, which they told us were becoming scarce; blue fish which are never caught in winter, and which also were diminishing in numbers; black drum; big porgees of four or five pounds; both the salt and fresh water varieties of cat fish, which were very abundant; whiting, our king fish, and their finest table delicacy; angel fish, crevalle; fresh water trout, our black bass, and shad, which begin their run in January.
All around Charleston the negroes seem to be in possession of the country. They are pleasant, polite, and lazy, are content to do the old slave tasks even when working for themselves, and will never consent to do more when working for others at any price of remuneration, as though if they worked too hard the work would be exhausted and there would soon be nothing more to do. They are paid fifty cents a cord, for instance, to cut wood, and they stop when they have cut one cord, although they are through at one o’clock. They look more healthy and happy than the whites throughout the entireSouth, which is a probably a climacteric result, but pregnant of many possibilities for the future. It is they who supply Charleston market, it is they who do the fishing and the work, and more important still, it is they who make all the Sea-island cotton and bring it to the city in their boats from the shores where inevitable death lurks for the superior race. That most valuable of Southern products, the old time king of the world, arrives in driblets, here a pound and there a pound. It is badly baled, but it comes and in good order too. To day the negro controls the whilom king, which is indeed putting the bottom rail on top.
The Charleston “Eagles,” as he called the buzzards, were a source of infinite complacency to the philosophical soul of the doctor. He would watch them by the hour, sympathizing with their metaphysically thoughtful ways. He would study their awkward and ungainly motions on the ground, and wonder that anything so ungraceful on foot could be so exquisitely elegant and graceful in the air when on the wing. These queer creatures stay around the market, and although the law forbids their being fed, as it is found with them as with human buzzards that necessity is the mother of scavengering, your butcher is always ready to throw them a surreptitious piece of meat for your amusement. They are the only street cleaners, and if they got their dinners gratuitously they might cease their useful public labors.
On January tenth we tore ourselves away fromCharleston, bidding good bye to its pretty streets, its tall spires, its beautiful gardens, and its pleasant inhabitants, among whom we must especially mention Commander Merril Miller of the Light-house service, who was very kind in furnishing us charts and assisting us in many ways. We bid a last farewell to Forts Sumter and Moultrie, and all the historic memories which are entwined with those names; to Sullivan’s Island, the Coney Island of Charleston, to the Three Sisters, three palmettos which guard the gate where once the confederate soldier stood sentry, and to the tomb of Oceola close by, to the buzzards and the beauties of the city, catching a last glimpse of White Point Park to which we waived a tender adieu. We headed our course towards the creek which has received the euphuistic appellation of “Wappoo Cut.” We carried away from Charleston this one valuable piece of information: to make “Hop-in-John,” boil one quart of cow peas (a sort of small bean), and one pound of bacon till thoroughly cooked, then put in two quarts of rice, boil for about half an hour longer and until well done, then add salt and pepper. This recipe came from the coloredchefof the Charleston hotel and must be correct. Hence hereafter no man or woman can claim to be so ignorant that they cannot cook “Hop-in-John.”
Beyond Charleston we had our first disagreeable adventure; it occurred when we were running through Wappoo Cut. We had been offered a volunteer tow by a small steam tug that we met there, but had hardly hitched fast to her,before a passenger steamer came in sight going the same way. This vessel gradually gained on us, and when she was close at hand, finding there was no room to pass, as the cut is extremely narrow near its outlet where we were, ran deliberately between our yacht and the tug, cutting our stern line away and nearly sinking us. This was an occasion, in which we should have been justified in shooting the pilot at his post, but we were in a foreign country, so to speak, and all we did was to cast loose our lines and get clear the best we could. The whole performance was the less excusable, because the wheelman saw there were ladies on board our boat, and that we were strangers. As this was the only piece of discourtesy shown us on our entire trip, I give the name of the vessel which was guilty of it, and warn all passengers to shun the “Pilot Boy.” It was by good luck alone that we escaped, for hardly had we got clear, than the two steamers jammed together, filling the cut from side to side, so that both were aground, and we heard the crashing of timbers and saw them fast there for nearly an hour. Had the “Heartsease” been between them, she would have been crushed. If any of our readers go South by the inland passage from Charleston, and it is a pleasant way of travel, we hope they will in a measure revenge our wrongs, and give a brutal captain a lesson in decent behavior, by refusing to patronize the “Pilot Boy.”
One of the most interesting features of the country we were now passing was the rice fields. Thesewere separated by dykes, and being nearly rectangular, gave a novel appearance to the low, marshy land. Had we known where to go, we could probably have had good English snipe shooting. But we did not stop to give Mr. Green a chance to interview any one to find out. We, however, saw numberless flocks of bay snipe on the lower part of the South Edisto, where the wind left us one night, and where Mr. Green killed a couple of dozen. On the following day, that gentleman was so pleased with the performance of the yacht in crossing St. Helena Sound in a squall, that he insisted on our putting to sea, upon the ground that he was tired of such tame sailing. The rest of the party were nothing loth, and the good little ship was soon across the bar and on the broad bosom of old Mother Ocean, a very step-mother as she can at times prove herself to be. Unfortunately, the wind died out, and we were becalmed or nearly so, and crawled slowly past Fripp’s Inlet. When we were just outside Port Royal breakers, which we reached at sundown, there was a dead calm, and we drifted backwards till we came to anchor in some four fathoms of water.
Our luck did not desert us, and before dark a nice breeze sprang up, which carried us into the harbor and up to the mouth of Skull Creek, where we passed the night in perfect comfort. Next morning the wind came out strong from the northeast, blowing what sailors would call half a gale of wind. We got under way as soon as we could, and were soon slashing along at a good nine milesan hour. To be sure of our speed, I proposed to make a log line. Now there is one point about Seth Green, which is if possible more decidedly developed than another; while he is perfectly satisfied that anything he does is better done than it ever was, ever will, or ever can be, by any one else, he is equally well convinced that no one else can do anything that he cannot, so when I made this proposition he simply smiled an incredulous smile. Under the force of that implication, a log line had to be made, and made to work, if all hands had to swear that she was making ten miles an hour when she was only making two.
It was an original species of a log. I knew the proper divisions for a fourteen second glass, which was the one we had on board, but the “chip” had to be manufactured out of the side of an old cigar box. I never shall forget Seth’s air of triumph, when having driven in the pin too hard, it did not slip out at the scientific jerk I gave when “time” was called on the first trial, the result being that the line parted when I was drawing it in. This merely encouraged me, as there was no difficulty in curing that defect, the only danger having been that my improvised “chip” would not hold well enough. So the log was soon in working order, and informed us that we were running nine miles an hour, and repeated the figure so often, that the skeptic was convinced, and asked me to join him while he apologized.
More bay snipe of all sorts, little and big, but notime to shoot them. They were flying about by twos, by threes, by dozens, by hundreds, but the wind was too fair and too fresh for us to lose it. We might be punished by being reduced to living on canned food, which, with the exception of corned beef, vegetables, and preserves, was an abomination to the entire party, and we did not stop voluntarily, till we reached Jekyl’s Creek. In reference to Jekyl’s Creek, there is an entry in my log, that is interesting to show how history repeats itself; “Oysters Excellent.” Half a century before, Professor Bache, who made the very charts by which we were sailing, had appreciated the excellence of the Jekyl Creek oysters, and had them barrelled and sent to him every year. I doubt, however, whether he knew how to cook them, at least in the quantity necessary for a hungry yachting party, and with the limited cooking appliances of a yacht.
They are called “Raccoon Oysters,” for the reason that the raccoons exhibited so much human nature in first appreciating their excellence, and in getting at their contents. They exist in immense mounds and piles, and to the Northern eye seem inexhaustible in numbers, covering hundreds, if not thousands of square miles, and averaging three feet thick. They line the shores of the creeks and water courses like two walls, and cling to branches of bushes, till it can be truly said of them that they grow on trees. Their natural position is with their edges upward, and these are nearly as sharp asrazors, and will cut one’s fingers or a raccoon’s paw terribly, unless care is taken in handling them. The ’coon’s plan is to slyly watch at low tide, when the beds are bare, till the unsuspicious bivalve, longing for a breath of the pure air of heaven as a change from the insipid diet of salt water, opens his mouth, when he quietly creeps forward and drops a piece of shell into the opening. Master oyster endeavors to resume his natural closeness of mouth, but in vain; the early closing movement has no reference to him.
My plan of treatment was different, although the final consequence to the oyster was about the same. To open such sharp-edged creatures in the ordinary way would soon have put our crew, experienced in oyster opening though they were,hors du combat, or to state it in English, useless for rope-hauling. Even to separate them from one another was a perilous job, so I hit upon the simple plan of putting them in bunches just as they grew into the ovens of the two stoves. There I let them roast till they opened their mouths of their own accord, precisely as they had done for the raccoon, but under a little more compulsion. Cooked in this way they were so delicious as to be worth a trip to Jekyl’s Creek merely to get. We almost lived on Jekyl Creek oysters, and if any one of the party got out of spirits, if Mr. Green or the Doctor wanted to propitiate one of the queens of the yacht, and the Doctor especially was continually engaged in that way, he never failed with a roasted raccoon oyster.
And now we are at Fernandina, in Florida at last. It has been a long but a delightful trip. Of all the yachting we ever did, and all of us have been more or less followers of the sea, that is, the inland sea, since childhood, we agreed unanimously this sail from New York to the South by the inland navigation, was the most delightful. It was an unbroken charm from the beginning to the end, with no more of real danger about it than would have been encountered on Broadway under falling bricks and over caving vaults. The variety of scenery was charming, the oddity of the trees and plants most interesting, and had we had the time to devote to it, the fishing and shooting would have been superb.
We had passed old Fernandina, and came to anchor opposite the new town of the same name, which had been selected on account of its having a better harbor in a norther, that terror of southern latitudes in winter, and which must have raked the old town pretty thoroughly. We had to go ashore at once. The tides have a great rise and fall, and we were glad to avail ourselves of the boat club landing which was kindly placed at our disposal. We found Fernandina a quaint old town, with a mixture of newness and age about it. Northernmen coming for their health had brought Northern ways and extravagances; there were modern villas and trim gardens, but the old mansions were still to be seen, and a few of the ancient houses built of coquina, a combination of lime and shell. No innovations could do away with the Southern foliage, which here was in rank growth and profusion. We saw orange trees in full bearing; palmetto trees in abundance, from the scrub saw-palmetto to the lordly cabbage palm, and cactuses six feet high, together with all the other trees and plants of the warm latitudes.
There is a fine shell road to the sea beach that is so hard that the wheels of a wagon scarcely make a mark upon it. This beach is the favorite promenade drive of natives and visitors in the season which had not come quite yet, although near at hand. Boys in the streets were selling sugar-canes at five cents a stick, and banana bushes, which are herbacious plants, were growing in many of the gardens. Mr. Green proceeded first to indulge in the entire luxuries of a barber’s establishment that he found, and then to interview the whole population. He came to the yacht in time for supper, laden with information and two fine Southern weakfish, which are much better to eat than our Northern variety, and which are locally known as trout.
The fishing around Fernandina is exceedingly good, and we found the colored population, which takes to fishing as naturally as the bee is nautically supposed to take to a tar bucket, everywhere, pursuingthe finny tribes through the numerous creeks and arms of the sea. Here we saw for the first time the circular cast net. It was used for catching the enormous shrimp or prawn, which, while shaped like the common shrimp, has a body six inches long, and feelers still longer. This curious creature is mostly used for bait, though it is excellent eating when boiled. There is good sheepsheading in the creek opposite the last house before reaching the cut, and as it was impossible to keep Mr. Green quiet longer without a day’s fishing, we had to let him go while the rest of us enjoyed the mere pleasure of existence in the delicious climate. We ate oranges and sucked sugar-cane in true childhood style, and wandered through the village while he was pursuing science. We were not a little ashamed of ourselves when he returned with a magnificent string of sheepshead, both the large and small kinds, sea trout, and a dozen other varieties, victualling the ship for several days. Then our sails were once more set and we were off for the further South, for there always is a higher height and a deeper depth; so there is a further south, a further west, and a more inaccessible north. We did not go far, however, before we had to stop. Not that there was any dire necessity, not that any member of our party was sick, nor that the wind or the bread had given out; not that we had lost our course or were actually impeded in any wise, but still we had to stop—in order to catch crabs. I take it for granted that there is none of my readers so unfortunate as never to have eatenthat most delicious of table luxuries, the hard-shell—for I have never given my allegiance to the soft-crab. If that is so, then I will have no occasion to make further explanation, when I say that the finest crabs which we got in the Southern waters, we caught at Fernandina, or rather between that place and Jacksonville, for the crabbing was good all the way. Mr. Seth Green is especially fond of these strange animals, who insist on wearing their bones outside of their skins, and no inducement except satiety will persuade him away from good crabbing ground. The Doctor is also fond of crabs, and so were all the rest of those on board, and hence there was not the slightest objection when Mr. Green made the following sensible remark:
“Well now that we have got to Florida, don’t you think it ’most time to begin to enjoy ourselves? You have kept us all hard at work as if our lives depended on it, driving away through good weather and bad, through rain and shine in order to get here, and now that we are here don’t you think that you might let up for a few days at least till we could have a little of the pleasure we came after?”
The wild ducks which we had killed in Currituck were gone long ago, the snipe we had found on the way down, had lasted only a short time, but Mr. Green had supplied us with all the fish we could eat, oysters lay around us begging to be picked up and roasted, and now we had an unlimited supply of crabs, which merely requested us to offer them a piece of refuse meat in exchange for their luscious bodies.If a man wants to live well and cheaply let him go to Florida, there certainly never was such a place for a yachting expedition. When we had boiled a reserve of nearly a hundred crabs, and we had all eaten as many as we could, we ceased crabbing and went to sailing once more.
Instead of going through the Sisters Creek, which is the shorter course, we stood out to sea from Fort George Inlet and ran into the St. John’s, a thing which I would advise no man to do unless he was well acquainted with the bars, or had like myself a very light draft vessel, for both the channels are narrow and shoal. When we were once inside the St. John’s we got out our nets in order to ascertain just what the waters contained. Although net fishing is not so stimulating as that with the hook and line, it is more certain even if both are in skilful hands.
We were rewarded by some small yearling mossbunkers and bluefish, which, while the Doctor looked on them as a disappointment, were valuable as settling the question that both of these fish spawn in the Southern waters. A further result of our efforts was, that we hurried on to Jacksonville as fast as we could. On the way we ran over a shad net. It was early in the morning, and there was a sort of haze on the water, so that we did not see the log that the fishermen tie to the end of their nets, to point out where it is. The owners of it were taking it in from the other side of their boat, and even so old a fisherman as Mr. Green was deceived as to the directionin which it was stretched. We carried a piece of it away with us, and had to cut it off from our rudder. For this we were sorry, but were miles off before we had even got an idea of the extent of apology we would have to make, or of the damage for which we would gladly have paid.
At Jacksonville we felt almost as much at home as if we were in New York. We found friends there, we made others, and enjoyed ourselves so thoroughly that it was only the imperative demands of sport that compelled us to move on. Just in the neighborhood of so large a city there is naturally not much to shoot or to catch. There are innumerable cat-fish which Mr. Green was never tired of taking, and which weighed as much as ten pounds each. He insisted they were excellent eating, a matter in which we allowed him to have his opinion without contesting the question. The water on the surface is fresh, and some black-bass can always be caught in the vicinity. The condition of the water in the St. John’s is different from that of any other stream with which I am familiar. Even as high up as Pilatka, eighty miles above, the surface water is absolutely fresh, while near the bottom there is a current so salt that crabs are caught in the shad nets. The salter fluid seems to be denser and heavier than the other, and will not mingle with it, so that we have the anomaly of both fresh and salt-water fish being caught at the same time and place.
Into the St. John’s there empty at every few miles tributary streams that are rarely ascended by thevisiting sportsman, and where the birds and fish exist in their primeval abundance and fearlessness. It is unnecessary to specify these by name, or to particularize any as better than others, for they are essentially alike. We could not explore them all, but those which we did, we found filled with fish and with a fair amount of game. It was too early in the year for alligators, if they can be called game, to show themselves, but birds were to be had plentifully, and fish were simply innumerable. Of these we killed so many that we had to salt them down. There is an additional interest, the interest of new explorations, in ascending the secluded rivers, and I advise every tourist who visits this portion of Florida in his own conveyance, not to omit going up one or more of them.
This was a late season, shad were running, and we had them continually on our table, but roses were not in full bloom in the open air, and as for strawberries, which are usually abundant by New Year’s, they had not come in at all yet. We had bought up all the curiosities that we could distribute among our Northern friends; we had played with the baby alligators in the jewelry stores; we had listened to the first installment of the wonderful Florida stories; we had dined at all the excellent Jacksonville hotels, and were ready to withdraw once more from civilization. So the Heartsease spread her sails again, and started up the river. I say “up,” because by the current our course was up stream; but it was down by the map. We were going south, the St.John’s being one of the few of the North American rivers which seem to run the wrong way, that is, from the south to the north. In our short stay in Jacksonville we had learned that alligator-tooth jewelry is occasionally made of celluloid; that one of the best drinks in the world of bar-keeping is a punch compounded from the native sour orange; that Florida stories are always reliable, even when they assert that mosquitoes are so abundant that hogs make meals of them, or inform us that the favorite game fish of Florida, the tarpon, jumps six feet out of water when he is hooked, or that sharks will seize a man if they have to leap as high as the deck of the yacht to do so. In leaving Jacksonville, we supposed we were leaving all this behind us, not knowing that Florida is full of quaint jewelry made, as the jewelry of no other part of the world, out of fish scales, saurian teeth, sea beans, shells, orange tree woods, and sharks’ molars; that everywhere there are wonderful stories which only differ from one another in size; that palmetto hats were to be bought in every village store, and that sour oranges hang from innumerable trees, valueless for traffic, and only begging to be made into nectar fit for gods.
By the time the Doctor had made these philosophical reflections, Heartsease was tearing along before a favoring breeze past Mandarin, past the Magnolia Hotel and Green Cove Spring; past Tocoi, the terminus of the St. Augustine Railroad, till she made anchorage by nightfall off Pilatka. On the way we had put up many ducks, had seen the cowsup to their backs in water feeding off the cabbage at the bottom, and thrusting their heads clear under to get it, and we began to realize that in the end we might come to believe anything of the wonders of this wonderful land. On the last day of our stay in Jacksonville, we had given a little lunch on board, and to show what dinners can be got up there, and how easily, I will reproduce the bill of fare. Everything had been prepared on board, and although our cabin could only seat twelve, we placed before the guests cold turkey, beef and tongue, chicken salad, prepared by the Doctor in most artistic style, stewed oysters, roast potatoes, radishes, and for dessert banana salad—an invention of the better part of the party,—Dummit Grove oranges, sapidillas, and grape fruit, withpieces montéesof palmetto leaves and sour orangesen branches. There was a littlepaté de foies grasalso, but that need not be counted, because it came from the North.
We found that when we had reached Pilatka the stories, instead of diminishing, developed yet more astonishing proportions. The mosquitoes, that the hogs fed on at Jacksonville, put out the head light of the locomotive at Pilatka, extinguished a bonfire, and made nothing of the negroes “light wood torches;” the tarpon of Jacksonville could only jump six feet high when hooked, while the tarpon of Pilatka, without being hooked, bounded clear over the rail of the steamboat Seth Low, which was ten feet from the water, struck the captain in the stomach, and knocked him down. We had not been at Pilatka two days,before we were ready to swallow any mental hallucination, so rapidly does faith grow in the glorious, and balmy air of Florida.
If Jacksonville had been attractive, Pilatka was equally so. Opposite to if is the famous orange grove of Mr. Hart, which we had to visit, and where we ate our first oranges, plucked by ourselves from the trees, beside tasting mandarins and tangerines, lemons, limes, guava and bananas, and that best of all oranges, the grape fruit. There were great plantations of bananas, which grow by suckers from the roots, and increase like weeds. They have to be three years old before they bear, and the development of the flower and fruit, which was going on while we were there, was a pretty sight. The top of the stalk turns over and produces a huge purple flower of a single leaf, as large as the hand of a giant. From under this large leaf starts a circle of small sprouts like fingers. The big leaf falls off, but from the ends of the fingers burst other, much smaller purple flowers. Then below the row of fingers grows another large flower like the first, and it also uncovers another row of fingers, so on till the entire bunch of bananas, as we know it in the market, is formed. Even then the flower point does not cease growing, but exhibits flower after flower, which are merely ornamental and do not result in fruit. Sprouts start so freely from the roots, that the young bushes have to be cut away every year with scythes, or they would become crowded, and the fruit degenerate. Every day, that was spent studying the wonderfulproductions of Florida, every new tree or bush, which attracted our attention by its beauty, or its oddity, every new species of fruit, which charmed our palate with its originality of flavor, made us more in love with this interesting country, and wish that it and its accompaniments could only exist in a colder climate. There was but one feeling in the minds of the party on leaving Mr. Hart’s plantation, which was that each of us could own an orange grove, and have it close at home.
One evening as we were returning after a sailing excursion to visit the neighborhood, we heard cries which sounded like cries of distress. The negroes were so in the habit of laughing at, and jibing one another, that we at first took no notice of these. It was nearly night, so dark, that objects could not be distinguished at any considerable distance; but the cries continuing, we determined to see whether they meant merely fun or something more serious, and kept away in the direction from which they came. That moment’s delay cost at least one man his life, and brought sorrow to one household. After sailing a few minutes, we were able to distinguish an object in the water, which looked like a boat capsized. Such it turned out to be, and as we approached, we could make out a number of men clinging to its sides. It was a launch belonging to the crew of a steam ferry boat, and was used by the men after their day’s work was over to take them across the river, as they left the steamer on the other side. It was abundantly able to carry the number that started init, and more, but some of them had been pouring out libations to Bacchus, or had been carried away by foolish animal spirits, we could not exactly determine which, and the result was, that the party of merry-makers was suddenly turned into one of mourners.
We luffed up alongside, and lay to, while our men lowered the boats, and picked up all the poor fellows who were left. Two were unaccounted for, one of whom had been seen to let go his hold and sink. Several of the others would have soon followed his example, except for our timely arrival, for the water happened to be cool that evening, and quickly benumbed their warm southern blood, although they were whites, and not blacks, as we at first supposed. After they were all on board, and it was apparent that there was no use in looking for their lost comrades, we hitched a line to their boat, and towed it behind us towards the shore. As the men crowded on our deck, they seemed so miserable, and did so tremble with the cold, that the hearts of the ladies were touched, and nothing would do but they must be brought into the cabin, and warmed at the stove, there being not room enough for so many in the forecastle. Their clothes dripped and drained over our pretty carpet, and left stains, which never were to come out, but we felt only too glad that we had been able to be of some use to any of our fellow “toilers of the sea.” We finally warmed their blood, and put fresh life into them with liberal rations of rum, which was fifty years old. Amid their sufferings what causedthem the most pain, was, that they would have to tell the wife of the engineer, who was lost, of his death. This they dreaded as much as they would have dreaded another struggle in the water.
There is often danger from the heavy fogs, which roll up dense, and dark on the St. John’s in the night time, and we saw several accidents from that cause. We took the precaution of always anchoring, when not in port, on some flat, and making sure of a well filled anchor light. The steamers invariably follow the channel, for their own protection, and the pilots run at full speed, as in that way alone can they be sure of their position, a knowledge which comes to them by habit. There was, however, one annoyance, which no lights would prevent, no mosquito nets keep out, and no preparation mitigate, the plague of gnats; they come, when they make up their minds to come, in myriads, pour down the companion way, preferring the inside of the cabin to the outside, make themselves at home, push into the state-rooms, and do not care in the least how many millions of their number you immolate. I had been advised that insect powder, if burned in the cabin, would drive them out. On their first visitation I tried the remedy. It is to be feared that the heartless person who gave me that recipe was a practical joker. There is nothing in the nature of gnats to specially provoke merriment so far as I could ever see, or feel, but there are persons who extract pleasure from a funeral. I placed a small quantity of the powder on a piece of paper, which I lighted.The paper was soon consumed, but the powder remained intact, in fact it preserved that part of the paper, which was directly under it. Then I added some chips, and laying the whole on an old plate, tried it again; failure number two, the powder was still unconsumed, and the gnats, who had not neglected these opportunities, while I was busy, to pay their respects to me, were as happy and lively as ever. Determined not be foiled, I then built a fire in the stove, and leaving the stove holes open, poured the powder on the flame. In vain, it only put out the fire. After that I lost faith in the virtues of insect powder, and had to endure as well as I could, lamentations coming faintly through the doors of the state-rooms “Oh what are these strange things that are biting us so.” Patience seems to be the only cure for gnat bites, and we did not carry that article with us.
“Doctor,” said Mr. Green one morning, after we had spent a couple of weeks in the delightful laziness of sight seeing and curiosity buying, “how much longer do you think the skipper intends to keep us idling here?” He had devoted his attention lately to dragging the Doctor with him on his interviewing expeditions, and they had just returned from their tenth call upon the northern shad fishermen, who, having brought their nets from their homes to try and catch the earliest run of shad, were camping in the woods beyond the town.
“I am afraid,” replied our medical associate with base dishonesty, for he was fully as fond of thedolcefar nienteas myself, “that he intends to remain here for the rest of his natural life.”
“What, going to stay here for ever!” came from the pretty mouth, which belonged to a pretty head, that just then appeared above the companion way, “I do like to go fishing, and get away from people.”
“Yes,” came faintly from another in the bowels of the cabin, “I am always fond of a change.”
“We havn’t caught a fish since day before yesterday,” continued Seth in a most injured tone of voice. “I should like to catch something beside cat-fish once more.”
This is the sort of thing that the yachtsman has to bear from his mutinous crew, and there is but one way of dealing with it. I went forward without a word, called my men, and we were underway so soon, that the breath was nearly taken from the party, and I heard low grumblings about provisions, which ought to have been laid in, and curiosities, which were to have been bought, and which never could be got again, for an hour afterwards, as we were rapidly running up the river.
The weather had become hot, the thermometer marking eighty-nine in the shade, and mosquitoes made their appearance in the evenings; for those we were prepared, as the yacht was especially fitted with mosquito screens. But the heat was too much for us, and it was unanimously determined that we must take a bath. We had brought our bathing dresses more by good luck than good management, for we had no expectation of quite so summery atime in the midst of winter. We had been assured that snakes never enter the waters of a sulphur spring, and that there was a sulphur spring at Welaka on our way. So we stopped where we thought it must be according to the chart, and in that instance, as in all others, the chart was right. In fact from the beginning of our trip to the end we found ourselves, by the aid of the charts, masters of the situation, and generally much better informed than the natives.
We anchored the yacht at the bend of the river just below Welaka, and taking the small boats rowed into the spring, which was only a hundred yards away. What a glorious sight it was, no puling little affair, such as is called a spring at the North, but a basin two hundred feet across, the water boiling up in the centre in a jet as large round as a hogshead, and rising a foot above the surface, clear as crystal, and gleaming like gems, the irridescent waves spreading away from the central source in lines of glistening transparency, the sunlight reflected from every ripple, as from a thousand prisms. Such a perfect bathing spot we had never seen before, it was a bath-room fit for Diana and her nymphs. We had put on our bathing clothes before leaving the yacht, and it took us but a few moments to fasten our boats and plunge overboard.
Snakes are one of the drawbacks of this warm tropical State. On some of the keys on the Gulf side, they are so numerous that no man is safe in landing. The most deadly is the rattlesnake, butthe most disagreeable is the mocassin, which, although not so fatal, sometimes attacks a man in the water without provocation. The latter’s bite produces paralysis more frequently than death, but as his attacks cannot be guarded against, he is really a more unpleasant enemy. The traveller’s safety in bathing consists in seeking one of these wonderful sulphur springs, into which snakes do not enter, although fish abound in them, looking like moving motes in liquid amber. The temperature of these springs is not cold, being the same as that of the rivers, but there is something exceedingly exhilarating in bathing in them. The feeling of the water is different from that of any other bath. There is a peculiar sense of cleanliness, and a lightness of spirits, which may account for the fancy of Ponce de Leon, that he had at last found the source of eternal youth. Many of these springs are brought within the destructive dominion of man, and are open to every passing tourist, but the one where we were was sacred to him, who has his own conveyance, and was not to be defiled or polluted by the common wayfarer.
We had a delightful bath. There is a common delusion that the water of the sulphur springs is so thin and light, that it will not support the best swimmer. We soon ascertained that this was a totally unfounded fancy, so far as the Welaka spring was concerned. We not only swam to and fro without difficulty, but enjoyed an additional pleasure in getting directly over the boiling spout itself,and being buoyed up by it, where the water was ten feet deep. All of us were sorry, when evening and hunger compelled us to return to the yacht.
The stories concerning the dangerous nature of the snakes of Florida are probably exaggerated, as we saw no more of them, than we would have seen in the same amount of country life at the North. The negro children bathe off the docks of Pilatka and Jacksonville as a common thing, and later in the year, when the peril from snakes is greater. There are spots, where, as I have said, they are to be dreaded, and we heard well authenticated stories of men being snake bitten, but on the other hand old hunters, who were in the woods most of their time, told us they were never troubled by their attacks, and the camping out parties, which we encountered all over, seemed not disturbed by them. Still, while on the subject, I will give the prescription which was kindly furnished us by Dr. Kenworthy of Jacksonville, and which will doubtless prove a better cure than the common one of getting drunk on whiskey; mix two tablespoonfuls of the carbonate of ammonia with enough spirits of camphor to make a paste. Apply this on a rag to the bite, changing the rag as often as it gets discolored. Our medical associate gave his approval to the remedy, and if those two authorities could not cure a snake bite, no one can.
As our little yacht shot out from the St. John’s River, nearly two hundred miles above the place where we had entered it, and came into full view ofthat beautiful sheet of water, Lake George, thousands of wild ducks rose three gunshots off, and flew away. The sight rejoiced our eyes, for we had passed several days on the river without seeing any large birds except the strange water-turkeys, or snake-birds. Unfortunately we had no battery with us, and had to trust to finding a point of land that the ducks would approach. This was no easy thing to do, and we sailed half the length of the north shore, before reaching a promising spot, a narrow point running out between two bays, and at the outer end of which the birds were crowded together in flocks of thousands. There was nothing to be done till the next morning, and seeing a farm house on the neck of land, Mr. Seth Green went ashore to get what information he could from the owner. This gentleman was at the moment working in his garden, and although the thermometer stood at eighty in the shade, he wore the encumbrance of a pair of long India rubber boots. As these seemed rather out of accord with the torrid temperature, he was delicately asked his reasons for wearing them; “well,” he replied philosophically, “they cannot strike over those.” This sounded ominously, for although, as I have said, we had heard a good deal about snakes, we had seen nothing of them yet. Our doubts were removed when the gentleman pointed out an immense dead rattlesnake hanging on the limb of a bush, and added, “I killed him yesterday.” We returned promptly to the yacht, contented to make our explorations by water thereafter,till we should get over the effect of so sudden an introduction to a new acquaintance.
Next day we devoted to the ducks, but we were not properly rigged for them, and soon learned that without a battery we could not expect to kill many in the wide waters of Lake George, they were mostly broad-bills, but did not seem to be as healthy as our Northern ducks. One of my men, who was an old gunner, said that their feathers appeared to be burnt, as though they had been scorched by the sun. They are continually chased by all the visitors to Florida, silly shooters, who fire at them from every passing steamboat, or who pursue them in the small steam yachts, which are becoming a feature of Southern travel. The day following, we sailed across the lake to the south-west corner, intending to ascend the Juniper Creek, which empties into it there. Mr. Green and myself were all of the party who cared to make the exploration; we took one of the small boats, and struck into the outlet, which we had found without difficulty and commenced the ascent. It was a strange, desolate river, quite unlike our Northern streams, slow and sluggish most of the way, half grown up with grasses, weeds, and cabbage plants, lined on either side by a rank, tall mass of reeds, that were yellow with age, and approaching decay, overhung here and there by some Southern plants or bushes, and once in a while winding between groves of palmettos. There was a sombre, savage, and deadly appearance in the water itself. We proceeded quietly for a time, but Mr. Green,who is more alive to the contents of a stream than to its air of gloom or brightness, broke the silence.
“Now,” he said, as he began setting up his rod, “I will show you my favorite rig for catching big-mouthed bass. Look at that trolling spoon, it is something of my own invention, although the tackle shops are getting them lately.”
He had a special arrangement of feathers and tin, not be described on paper, but long experience has made me skeptical about new all-killing inventions, and possibly my countenance betrayed my thoughts, for he went on, as he saw me getting out a cast of bass flies.
“I know” he observed, throwing his lure overboard, “that other rigs will take some, but you see now, I shall have one within a minute.”
I had no choice, as I was seated in the bow of the boat, and could not have used a trolling spoon if I had wished, as our lines would have fouled. I had to put on flies and fish by casting.
“That is all very well,” I replied, “at certain times, and in a stream like this, but if we had a large, deep river, I would rather use a number of flies on a long leader.”
“There,” said Mr. Green at that moment as he struck a fish, “what did I tell you. If you want to take black-bass, particularly this kind—”
He never finished his observation, for at that moment a four-pound fish seized my fly, and it took our joint skill and attention to keep from fouling. He managed, however, to get his fish in quickly, asit was a small one, and give me an opportunity to play mine with the light tackle that I was using. We saved them both, but they were only the forerunners of an unlimited number. The spoon did undoubtedly kill the most, but there were all that we both wanted, ten times over, and we had to stop fishing, to avoid destroying more than we could use. I had the satisfaction of catching the largest, however, with the fly.
We had brought a gun, as well as our fishing tackle. Suddenly from out the bushes there rose with much noise and flurry a large bird. I had hardly time to grab my gun, before he was out of range, and although I fired, it was ineffectually.
“Oh, I am sorry you missed him,” said Mr. Green sadly, for he always takes a dejected view of other people’s failures, “that was a Limpkin, and I should like to have got him.”
“I thought it was a water turkey,” I replied, referring to the queer creature that we had seen on ever stick and stump in the St. John’s. “But whatever it was, it was out of range when I fired.”
“I think he was a Limpkin,” persisted my companion, “don’t you, Charley?”
The stream was becoming rapidly narrower, and as that made the fishing more difficult, and we had all the fish we wanted, we took in our lines. Soon Charley had to cease rowing and resort to poling. We finally came to where it was so narrow that there was scarcely room for the boat, and the overhanging branches and bushes swept against ourfaces. We were just about to give up any idea of further advance, when suddenly we shot out from the small brook into a broad river. Instead of having ascended to the head waters of the Juniper, we had hardly been in it at all, having mistaken one of its mouths for the stream proper. The hour was growing late, but this new river seemed so attractive, we were so sure that it was the one we had been looking for, and that it must lead into the lake not far from where we had left our yacht, that we determined to descend it instead of retracing our course by the way we had come. Here it was that I fired at and wounded a real Limpkin, as I have already related. We went down with the current, having in the broad stream a good chance to use the oars. The sun dropped behind the trees, which were more numerous on the banks of this stream than they had been on those of the other. On and on, and still we did not come to the outlet. It began to look as though we had made a mistake, and this river was a different one from what we had supposed. The prospect of spending the night in the woods now forced itself upon us. My coat was thin, and already the evening air felt chill; we could make a fire, for we were too old stagers to be caught without matches, but the thought of snakes was not pleasant, in spite of the assurances of their rarity, and the excellence of our antidote.
Charley had been rowing a long time and was getting tired, so I offered to “spell” him. This I did till the sun had gone entirely and darkness wasclosing in upon us fast. Still no signs of the lake, or of an end to this apparently endless river. Strange noises rang through the forest, cries like those of wild beasts, but such as we had never heard before, often as we had passed the night in the woods. I recalled what I had read of the puma, the dreaded Southern tiger, and realized the fact that against him number four duck shot would be a feeble defence. The noises grew louder and louder, the forests fairly reverberated with the unearthly screams till, when one more than usually horrible burst upon our ears, Mr. Green inquired with a composure, which seemed slightly assumed:
“What sort of an animal do you think it is that makes a noise like that?”
I had never heard anything so appalling in my life before, but was not to be outdone by my associate in coolness, and replied in a hollow mockery of jest:
“That? Oh, that is a Limpkin. There can be no doubt of that.”
To this reply Mr. Green made no direct response, though his face intimated that jokes on some occasions were out of place. The unnatural stillness of the country made these noises perhaps more ominous and unearthly. There was not a breath of air to stir the trees, no ripple or current to the stream which might have diverted our thoughts by its musical babble, and deathlike silence hung over the land, except when broken by the ringing screams. The night was getting darker and darker,and at last we came reluctantly to the conclusion that we had better stop, in order to prepare our camp and make sure that there were no rattlesnakes while there was light enough to do so.
“Let us go to the next turn,” said Seth, who had even a greater dislike than the rest of us to spending the night in the woods. “If we do not see any signs of an outlet there we may as well give it up.”
“Agreed,” I replied, as I bent once more to the oars, “let us keep up hope.”
We proceeded, but with little expectation of any good results. What was our surprise and joy then, on reaching the point, to behold the broad waters of the lake spread out before us, and the Heartsease lying in full view with her light up. The sight gave me such vigor that I rowed the rest of the way, although Charley announced that he was rested and wanted to take the oars.
In spite of the beauty of the country, there is a sense of desolation about the wilder parts of Florida. The great trees, covered with moss, and many of them going to decay; the dull, sluggish rivers with slow discolored current, the low lands never rising above a shell-mound of twenty feet height, combine to produce a feeling of dreary solitude. This was particularly noticeable on the journey to and from Florida, through the endless swamps, marshes, and reedy islands, which border the narrow inland passages, and was only occasionally broken by passing a town, or one of the few country seats that are tobe found on the unhealthy shores. Nor do there seem to be many water fowl on the Southern Atlantic Coast, until you pass to the south of St. Augustine and reach the neighborhood of Indian River. In making the trip to and from the St. John’s, we only saw, beside the ducks and English snipe the bay-birds, of which I have spoken, and a number of the handsome and imposing white herons. These stood in solemn grandeur on the shore of some creek, and seemed too glorious to shoot. Occasionally, however, we could not resist, and had to murder them for their loveliness. Then one of us would hide himself among the reeds on the shore, while the other would go to the extreme end of the line of stately creatures, and put them up. They fly slowly along the edge of the water, and if the sportsman is well hid, there is no difficulty in getting a shot at them. They should never be killed, unless it is to set them up and preserve them, as was done for us by the Doctor.
In Lake George there were millions of mullets jumping continually out of water, like dancing silver arrows, they would not take the fly, or trolling spoon, and as we had all the fish we could use, we did not try the net. We visited a splendid spring, called by a name which seems to be given by common consent to most of the sulphur springs of Florida, that of “silver.” It empties into the lake on the western side, about half way down. A bank of snail shells, which must have been cast up by the waves, marks the outlet. Many of them are in good