76 THE ENGLISH ANGLER IN FLORIDA vn 



about 7.30 in the morning with a pair-horse hack, and we drove nine 

 miles out in the country to see some fine orange groves. We 

 travelled through ground thick with palmetto green and fir trees, 

 except where it had been burnt down or cleared for an orange grove. 

 The road was in places very sandy, and we went through streamlets 

 and across wooden bridges over the creeks. Some of the orange 

 groves were fine big trees, twenty years old, and others quite small 

 ones just planted ; between the trees, sugar cane or tomatoes were 

 growing. The tomatoes are ripe now and being shipped daily in 

 boxes to the northern markets. On our way back, we stopped at the 

 experimental station supported by the State, and saw some acres of pine- 

 apple, but none of them ripe. There are twenty varieties growing 

 there, and all kinds of plants and flowers. The man in charge gave me 

 a beautiful crimson hybiscus bloom and two or three roses. Got 

 back about 12.30 to the inn. 



Friday, 2yd April. — Lovely sunny morning with wind dropped 

 a little. Jim took a black guide, named Dode, and started off fish- 

 ing about 8 A.M., returning about 5 o'clock with a tarpon weighing 

 41 lbs. Mr. Van Cortlandt got one also, weighing 62 lbs. ; none of 

 the others staying here brought any home. They hooked several but 

 lost them. 



Saturday, 24//; April. — Fine morning, but still windy. Jim started 

 off about nine, fishing, and returned about five with a tarpon of 

 92 lbs. ; he was the only visitor at this inn who caught one. 



Sunday, 25M April — Lovely morning with wind dropped. We 

 were up at six, and at seven started off up the river in the little steamer, 

 the Belle of Myers, which we had hired for the day. We voyaged 

 1 8 miles to a place called Telegraph Creek, where we stopped for two 

 or three hours and fished. It was very pretty going along the 

 river, which gets narrower as we advanced. We saw five or six 



