180 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



returning hope, a sudden joy to tlie sinking 

 spirit renewed its vitality. Human voices in 

 exclamation thrilled the sufferer's heart, as 

 round the headland covered with tangled brush- 

 wood the little boat, pushed by its hardy rowers, 

 boldly advanced. A scream of joy and fear 

 falls upon their ears. They pause and look 

 around. Again it comes, but more feebly than 

 before. At length they behold the wanderer, 

 whose strange and terrible appearance they could 

 scarcely recognize as human. 



With tattered garments, hanging like rags 

 about him, his face obscured by neglected beard, 

 his hair matted, and his emaciated frame covered 

 only by shrivelled skin, like a skeleton with 

 parchment, there he lay with fluttering heart, 

 gasping breath and reeling brain. Yet the lost 

 one was soon regained, and, soon restored to the 

 loving hearts and kindly solicitude of home, in 

 renewed health and happiness often in after 

 years gratefully told the tale of his adventure, 

 and excited the sympathy of his listeners by the 

 painful recital of his sufferings. 



A class of men whose calling, no less than 

 that of the Live Oakers, exposes them to strange 

 incidents and often to peril, are the Turtlers, 

 who frequent the various islets about Florida. 

 The Tortugas, a group of eighty miles from 

 Key West, consisting of a few uninhabitable 



