502 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
“camping” parties—one of forty-eight Indians, at Tak-o- si-mac la’s 
cane field, on the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp; the other of twenty- 
two persons, at a Koonti ground, on Horse Creek, not far from the site 
of what was, long ago, Fort Davenport. 
I found great difficulty in reaching the “camp” at the sugar cane field. 
Twas obliged to leave my conveyance some distance from the island on 
which the cane field was located. When we arrived at the shore of the 
Saw-grass marsh no outward sign indicated the presence of fifty Indians 
so close at hand; but suddenly three turbaned Seminole emerged from 
the marsh, as we stood there. Learning from our guide our business, 
they cordially offered to conduct us through the water and saw-grass 
to the camp. The wading was annoying and, to me, difficult; but at 
length we secured dry footing in the jungle on the island, and after a 
tortuous way through the tangled vegetation, which walled in the camp 
from the prairie, we entered the large clearing and the collection of 
lodges where the Indians were. These lodges, placed very close to- 
gether and seemingly without order, were almost all made of white 
cotton cloths, which were each stretched over ridge poles and tied to 
four corner posts. The lodges were in shape like the fly of a wall tent, 
simply a sheet stretched for a cover. 
At a Koonti ground on Horse Creek I met the Cat Fish Lake In- 
dians. They had been forced to leave their homes to secure an extra 
supply of Koonti flour, because, as [ understood the woman who told 
me, some animals had eaten all their sweet potatoes. The lodges of 
this party differed from those of the southern Indians in being covered 
above and around with palmetto leaves and in being shaped some 
like wall tents and others like single-roofed sheds. The accompanying 
sketch shows what kind of a shelter TAl-la-has-ke had made for himself 
at Horse Creek. (Fig. 67.) 



Fic. 67. Temporary dwelling. 

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e 
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