REMEDIAL VALUE OF THE CLIMATE OF FLORIDA. 649 



chilling the blood till stasis occurs in some vital organ, and inflamma- 

 tion and death result. There, the old man pursues out-door life fearless 

 of frost or intense heat, and, in a prolonged and painless existence, for- 

 gets that his summer is gone, and the snows of winter are upon his head. 



In closing this paper, some reference to places in Florida most suit- 

 able for invalids may be of intei'est. 



Leaving Jacksonville in the afternoon of any day, by one of the 

 beautiful side-wheel steamers, the passenger, sitting on the forward 

 guard, sees unrolled before him a semi-tropical scene. The vessel 

 makes its way in the midst of a broad stream of placid stillness, 

 whose shoaling shores are curved and fretted by inlet and headland, 

 bearing above them the rich luxuriance of evergreen foliage, like a 

 broad mirror festooned with myrtle and vine. Often, so far away 

 from the course of the boat are the distant shores that one may with 

 difficulty descry the towns and houses which are indicated in the dis- 

 tance. For seventy-five miles and more to the southward the river 

 retains this similitude to a broad and extended lake. Indeed, it seems 

 but a long arm of the sea, the rise and fall of the tide being percep- 

 tible even at that distance. Night closes on the journey. During the 

 time you pass through an expanse of the river twelve miles wide and 

 eighteen miles long (Lake George), and when you awake you find the 

 boat in a narrow stream, running beneath the shade- of overhanging 

 vines and palmettos, the waters bearing upon their surface a strange, 

 floating, bright-green vegetation, well described by the popular name 

 water-lettuce. Along the shore acres of broad-leaved water-lilies 

 rise and fall with the rapidly-running waves, which surge along the 

 course of the steamer. Here the stream is exceedingly tortuous, and 

 the greatest care is needed on the part of tbe pilot lest, in turning the 

 acute agles of low-lying land which project to the right and left like 

 alternating narrow blades, his boat will shoot forward beyond his con- 

 trol and fasten itself amid the tangled boughs of a partially submerged 

 forest. This is the paradise of the sportsman, the home of wild ducks 

 and turkeys, and pelicans, and pink curlews. 



At a distance of one hundred and ninety miles from Jacksonville 

 another broad expanse of water is entered Lake Monroe five miles 

 wide and twelve miles long. On the shore of this lake the boat lands 

 at Sanford, Orange County, which is the head of navigation for large 

 steamers. Beyond this lake the river again diminishes in depth, and 

 is navigable only for very light-draught boats. The origin of the 

 river is in Lake Washington, amid the marshes of the Everglades, two 

 hundred and fourteen miles farther to the south. 



There are but few places on the course of the river that are desir- 

 able for invalids, on account of the proximity of swamps and danger 

 from malaria. At Sanford I was somewhat amused to see the proprie- 

 tor of a prominent hotel, which solicits the patronage of invalids, 

 taken with a severe chill while at the desk receiving his guests. 



