PREFACE. 



THE larger portion of the Sketches contained in this 

 volume were contributions made by the Author to " The 

 Spirit of the Times," a few years ago, under the title 

 of " Camp-Fire Stories," and as some of them have 

 been floating about in other papers, this statement 

 seems necessary, lest the reader may regard these 

 "twice-told tales" as lacking in originality. 



Nothing more is claimed for this volume than that it 

 contains pleasant reminiscences of hunting life and 

 adventure in the peninsula of Florida, and counterparts 

 of tales, some of them remembered, some of them 

 fancied, that frontier hunters tell when assembled at 

 night around their camp-fires. 



The Author does not ask that each story shall be 

 regarded as having occurred literally as written ; but he 

 believes the spirit of the tales, the description of natural 

 scenery, and the fragments of Indian history to be cor- 

 rect, and he has carefully striven not to offend the keen 

 observation and long experience of his hunting comrades 

 at the South whose eyes will scrutinize these pages, by 

 any allusion to natural history which is not exactly true. 

 If the book will recall the Author pleasantly to their 

 minds, or awaken the remembrance of grand old sports 

 and merry camp-fires in the States of the South, its 

 object is attained. 



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