THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



it is best for the hunter to place his left foot on 

 the extreme bow of the skiff, resting the right 

 upon the forward seat. With a light canoe one 

 should stand on the bottom unless he happens to 

 be an acrobat of parts. 



With your harpoon ready for action, in your 

 right hand, you sway to the motion of your 

 craft as instinctively as you would balance a 

 bicycle. With a silent, skilful boatman behind 

 you there is no sound of paddle or sculling oar 

 as the shores of the waters you explore glide 

 past you. Within a score of years I thus spent a 

 thousand hours, or perhaps twice that, exploring 

 the waters of the west coast of Florida, from 

 Cedar Keys to Cape Sable and from them to 

 Miami. I followed rivers to their sources in the 

 Everglades and the Big Cypress; drifted with 

 the currents and was paddled or sculled about 

 the ten times ten thousand keys of the Ten 

 Thousand Islands, while my boatman's pole, 

 paddle, or oar sounded the shallows and depths 

 of the network of bays and lakes that extend 

 from the Big Cypress Swamp on the north to 

 the extreme end of the peninsula and even the 

 keys beyond it. Every minute was full of in- 



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