Lntroduction 
Florida friends who nursed him through his 
long and serious illness. In 1898, while travel- 
ing through the South on a forest-inspection 
tour with his friend Charles Sprague Sargent, 
he took occasion to revisit the scenes of his early 
adventures. It may be of interest to quote 
some sentences from letters written at that 
time to his wife and to his sister Sarah. “I 
have been down the east side of the Florida 
peninsula along the Indian River,”’ he writes, 
“through the palm and pine forests to Miami, 
and thence to Key West and the southmost 
keys stretching out towards Cuba. Returning, 
I crossed over to the west coast by Palatka to 
Cedar Keys, on my old track made thirty-one 
years ago, in search of the Hodgsons who 
nursed me through my long attack of fever. 
Mr. Hodgson died long ago, also the eldest 
son, with whom I used to go boating among 
the keys while slowly convalescing.” 
He then tells how he found Mrs. Hodgson 
and the rest of the family at Archer. They had 
long thought him dead and were naturally very 
[ xxii J 
