THE OKEECHOBEE EXPEDITION. 251 



Centre, a military post in the last Indian war, was six 

 miles from the lake upon this creek. 



After this succession of bays and marshy points the 

 shore suddenly turns northward, and vegetation assumes 

 a different appearance. Cypress appear here and there, 

 and a thick sprinkling of ash and palmetto. About four 

 miles from the commencement of the northward dip, the 

 shore turns north-east. Three miles south of this curve 

 is a group of three islands, about two miles in length. 

 They curve from south to north-east, and are nearly 

 submerged, only covered with ash, apparently, and low 

 willows. At this curve in the main shore ends the Ever 

 glades, and commences a cypress belt that extends north 

 east for thirty miles. The beach here is composed of 

 disintegrated shells, and there are many species of salt 

 water shells thrown upon the shore. Fragments of 

 coquina, also, were found here. There were tracks of 

 coons and rabbits here, the first seen since leaving the 

 north-west shore. Moccasin snakes were unusually 

 plentiful, and unwound themselves from nearly every 

 fallen tree. A belt of cypress, in which is mingled all 

 the trees mentioned as occurring in the hammocks of the 

 north-west shore, backs this white shell beach, the only 

 breaks in which, to within two miles of the Kissimmee, 

 are, first a deep sound, fifteen miles south-east of the 

 Kissimmee, and a bay two miles from that river. This 

 latter bay so much resembles that of the Kissimmee that 

 it will puzzle one unless he examines it thoroughly. 

 Taylor s creek, and another smaller, empty into the lake 

 within ten miles of the Kissimmee, but their channels 

 are so choked with water-lettuce and lilies that an expe 

 rienced eye is required to discern them. 



The lake is about forty miles long, by twenty-five in 



