76 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



emigrants to death, as related in New York news- 

 papers ? or are the reporters masters of the art of 

 writing minor fiction ? I hope so indeed. 



No foolish slavery to the time schedule inspired 

 the engine - driver during that southern crawl 

 through Florida. Before we left Lakeland, we 

 were one hour late ; by ten in the morning, we 

 were two hours late ; before the end came, we were 

 so late that all reckoning had been abandoned. 

 When asked if that train always took its obligations 

 so easily, the dusky conductor on the car smiled 

 broadly. Breadth of smile is, in most niggers, 

 the saving virtue of an otherwise unpretentious 

 physiognomy. The one diversion during that 

 funereal progress was when a large picnic party 

 of women and children boarded the train at one 

 siding and left it an hour later at another. 



Already in the train the talk was of tarpon. A 

 long-legged individual, who, by sprawling over most 

 of the car, kicked my camera off the opposite seat 

 and then apologised with the air of having conferred 

 a favour (more democracy, I suppose), guessed my 

 mission in those parts, though I had no fishing- 

 tackle with me in the car (and none, had I known 

 it, within fifty miles), and began to tell anecdotes 

 of the season's fishing. At first, his chatter was 

 continuous and amusing ; afterwards, it was merely 

 continuous. When at last I realised that his advice 

 was not wholly disinterested when he counselled 

 my giving up Useppa and proceeding by the train 

 to Fort Myers, he bored me so deeply that I first 

 feigned to doze and then acted the part so well that 

 I fell fast asleep, and the nigger awoke me only 

 when we were running into Punta Gorda. 



