62 IN FLORIDA. 



that 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 found 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 depend- 

 ed 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 bad 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. 



