CAMP LIFE IN FLORIDA, 



PREFATORY. 



THIS volume is a compilation from the columns of 

 the sportsmen s journal known as the &quot;Forest 

 and Stream.&quot; It is, in great part, the outcome of two 

 special commissions sent by the publishers of that paper 

 to explore southern and south-western Florida one 

 of them to Lake Okeechobee, in the winter of 1873- 74, 

 and the other, in the winter and spring of 1874- 75, to 

 the section laved by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

 To some of its readers it will therefore appear at second 

 hand ; but republication is justified and extenuated by 

 the fact that it has been pressed by repeated solicitations 

 of gentlemen who appreciate the value of the informa 

 tion its chapters contain. So little is known of the 

 Florida Peninsula, and so very meagre are the written 

 accounts of its geography and resources, that the citizens 

 of Florida have, privately and through the press and 

 public meetings, acknowledged to the editor his substan 

 tial service rendered to the State. Now, more than ever, 

 is attention being directed to the Land of Flowers. 

 Winter visitors in vast numbers migrate thither as regu 

 larly as the birds of passage. Twenty thousand people 



