528 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA, 
been cut through the dense growth of trees, and the trees were covered 
with hanging mosses and air plants 
The ponds differed from the swamps only in being treeless. They are 
open sheets of water surrounded by bands of greater or less width of 
tall grasses. The third day, between 30 and 40 miles from Myers, we 
left the pine tree lands and started across what are called in Southern 
Florida the “prairies.” These are wide stretches covered with grass and 
with serub palmetto and dotted at near intervals with what are called 
pine “islands” or “hammocks” and eypress swamps. The pine island 
or hammock is a slight elevation of the soil, rising a few inches above 
the dead level. The cypress swamp, on the contrary, seems to have its 
origin only in a slight depression in the plain. Where there is a ring 
of slight depression, inclosing a slight elevation, there 1s generally a 
combination of cypress and piue and oak growth. For perhaps 15 miles 
we traveled that third day over this expanse of grass; most of the way 
we were in water, among pine islands, skirting cypress Swamps and saw- 
grass marshes, and being jolted through thick clumps of serub palmetto. 
Before nightfall we reached the district occupied by the Indians, pass- 
ing there into what is called the “ Bad Country,” an immenss expanse 
of submerged land, with here and there islands rising from it, as.from 
the drier prairies. We had a weird ride that afternoon and night: 
Now we passed through saw-grass 5 or 6 feet high and were in water 6 to 
20 inches in depth; then we encircled some impenetrable jungle of vines 
and trees, and again we took our way out upon a vast expanse of water 
and grass. At but one place in a distance of several miles was it dry 
enough for one to step upon the ground without wetting the feet. We 
reached that place at nightfall, but found no wood there for making a fire. 
We were 4 miles then from any good camping ground. Captain Hen- 
dry asked our Indian companion whether he could take us through the 
darkness to a place called the “ Buck Pens.” Ko-nip-ha-tco said he 
could. Under his guidance we started in the twilight, the sky covered 
with clouds. The night which followed was starless, and soon we were 
splashing through a country which, to my eyes, was trackless. There 
were visible to me no landmarks. But our Indian, following a trail 
made by his own people, about nine o’clock brought us to the object 
of our search. A black mass suddenly appeared in the darkness, It 
was the pine island we were seeking, the “ Buck Pens.” 
On our journey that day we had crossed a stream, so called, the Ak- 
ho-lo-wa-koo-tei. So level is the country, however, and so sluggish the 
flow of water there that this river, where we crossed it, was more like 
a swamp than a stream. Indeed, in Southern Florida the streams, for 
a long distance from what would be called their sources, are more a 
succession of swamps than well defined currents confined to channels 
by banks. They have no real shores until they are well on their way 
towards the ocean. 
Beyond the point I reached, on the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp, 

