A PEEP AT THE EVERGLADES 121 



But though we Northern visitors may some- 

 times envy our Southern brethren their gift of 

 happy insouciance, it is not for our possessing. 

 We were born under another star. Our lack is 

 the precise opposite of theirs ; even in our vaca- 

 tion hours we have seldom time to sit still. 



So it happened that on a sultry, dog-day morn- 

 ing, with a south wind blowing, the sky partly 

 clouded, a comfort to the eyes, the pro- 

 fessor and the bird-gazer, after an early break- 

 fast, set forth upon a reconnoissance of the 

 Everglades. We took each a boat and an oars- 

 man, planning to go up the Miami River, or 

 rather its south branch, till we were among the 

 " islands " small pieces of hammock woods 

 scattered amid the wilderness of saw-grass. 



As each of us had his own boat, so each had 

 his own errand, one botanical, the other lazily 

 ornithological. The professor expected to see 

 and learn much especially about the adapta- 

 tion of plants to their surroundings ; his asso- 

 ciate expected to see and learn little little or 

 nothing ; and according to each man's faith, so 

 it was unto him. 



For the first mile or so as far as the tide 

 runs, perhaps the river is densely beset on 

 either side by a shining green hedge of man- 

 grove bushes, every branch sending down " aerial 



