140 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



may creep up to your door — but so as to have a full view 

 of the clear, sparkling water, and the beautiful water-lilies 

 that are either already there or cau be brought from more 

 favored lakelets in the neighborhood. A little water, in 

 one pure, mirror-like spot, will do wonders for a landscape ; 

 in fact, one feels the want of a principal element of beauty, 

 if it is not to be seen. 



As we have intimated, there are few tracts of twenty, or 

 even ten acres, in the Lake Regions of Florida, where a 

 lake of some kind may not be found. From the second- 

 story of a house at the writer's hand, for instance, no less 

 than ten such sheets of water, some larger, some smaller, 

 are visible, their extent altering greatly as the wet or the 

 dry season prevails. 



"Are they not unhealthy?" we are often asked. No, 

 not at all ; they are vastly different from the ponds scat- 

 tered widely through many of our Northern States, which 

 have mild bottoms, and in which the water becomes stag- 

 nant and malarial ; our numerous Florida lakelets (we 

 don't degrade them by calling them ponds) are formed by 

 hollows of different sizes becoming filled with water during 

 the copious rains of summer. Sometimes they are origin- 

 ated and fed by springs ; but, however this may be, the 

 fact remains that their bottoms are composed entirely of 

 sand, clean, pure, and unfouled by mud. The water con- 

 stantly filters down through the sand, and a constant evap- 

 oration also takes place from the surface, so that its mass 

 is always changing and never stagnates. 



Many a time have we ridden through these little lakelets 

 when the water was so deep as to necessitate lifting our 

 feet to our horse's back, and yet the white sand and short 

 grass at the bottom were almost as plainly to be seen as if 

 uncovered. 



When the dry time comes, and they begin to recede from 



