498 MODERN SEA FISHING 



sunshine was brilliant, and I was strongly reminded of the Nile 

 on a March day, yet Hart was dissatisfied. As we made our 

 way up the beautiful creek, I looked at as much of the horizon 

 as I could see, but there was not so much as a cloud ' of the size 

 of a man's hand.' We proceeded leisurely, stopping now and 

 then to dip our great palmetto hats into the water, in order that 

 they might keep our heads a little cool, for the heat even at 

 ten o'clock was almost too much for endurance. Among the 

 other contents of our boat were four dozen bottles of British 

 beer which I had obtained with great difficulty for a party of 

 young Englishmen who, I had heard, had formed a small 

 settlement in this very creek. They had taken up their resi- 

 dence on an island there, and were endeavouring to earn a 

 living by growing vegetables for the northern markets. I fear 

 they fared but ill. One of them had the appointment as post- 

 man, worth 6o/. a year. His duty was to convey the mail some 

 hundreds of miles in a sailing boat, and out of this 6o/. he had 

 to provide himself with a boat and new sails. 



I should like to say ' right here,' as the Americans have it, 

 that the custom of shipping off young men to Florida is one 

 that cannot be too severely deprecated. 



The country is not rich ; orange-growing sounds well enough 

 on paper, but is in nine cases out of ten a most disastrous 

 pursuit, infinitely more of a lottery, indeed, than growing hops 

 at home. The 1895 crop, for example, has, according to the 

 Press, been ruined by the frost. It is true that many young 

 Englishmen who have been sent to Florida are scamps, but 

 others are thoroughly hard-working fellows, and it is sad to see 

 them living lives of semi-starvation. After seven or eight years' 

 residence it is almost impossible to recognise the young public 

 school or 'Varsity man. He has acquired the strange sallow 

 Florida complexion, he has grown long and thin, his accent is 

 infinitely more Transatlantic than that of the Eastern or Western 



