CHAPTER II 



AMONG THE ALLIGATORS 



THE scenery of that coast will not be found prepossessing ; 

 but some of the islands, though almost repellent from with- 

 out, with their unvarying fringe of oyster-covered mangrove 

 growth depending in the water, are really beautiful in the 

 interior, where their vegetation presents a luxuriant medley of 

 palms, yucca, cactus, indiarubber trees, and all the wealth 

 of festooned creepers so characteristic of the sub-tropical 

 forest. There are long avenues of cabbage palm, that curious 

 proof of human patience, which leads men willingly to fell a 

 plant fourteen inches thick for the sake of a nut-like heart 

 measuring six inches by three. Many of the pools and 

 swamps in the interior are still the haunts of alligators, though 

 the ranks of those hideous reptiles have been greatly thinned 

 by the professional skin hunters. 



35 



