Terms, Four Dollars a Year. ) 

 Ten Cents a Copy. J 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1876. 



j Volume 7, Number 16. 



) 17 Chatham St.(CityHallt*ur.) 



MATURE AND LIFE. 



Selected. 



_ » ■ — 



THE sunset gleams from wood aad hill, 

 The lark's sweet song comes from the plain; 

 It rings through field and woodland still, 

 And strikes my listening ear again. 



Yet now alone I sit and think 

 With sadness mid the song and bloom, 



That joy (should ever cease to be, 

 That sorrow to the mind should come. 



For why the evening's rest and calm, 

 The lights of day with promise rife, 



If not to every sense a charm, 

 A boon to all the world of life? 



I look around on earth and sky, 



Now lighted by the parting day, 

 Which e'en more splendid to the eye 



Doth seem, now that it fades away. 



By morning light the earth was fair, 



As after winter's frost and flood 

 "Comes on the softly breathing air, 



The song of birds from field and wood. 



So much to nature am I bound 



For all her gracious gifts to me, 

 But in my ear these words do sound, 



That even in my thoughts do be. 



The light, the life, the song, the bloom, 



Dwell with thee only for a time; 

 The mind alone has power to h«ld 



Thee in a never-changing clime. 



So in a rapture thus I sing, 



Oh ! ye sweet days that yet shall be; 

 And such as memory oft doth bring, 



Thy light alone shall live with me. 



So shall a sweet content surround 

 Those varying moods, the ills of time, 



Like ocean tides that rise and fall 

 Within a flowery, blithesome clime. 



So shall a joy my fancies crowd, 

 While round my life I build my home, 



Above each passing, stranger cloud 

 Of sorrow to the mind to comet 



r Mt 



For Forest and Stream. 



y ond of 0arid%. 



NUMBER 3. 



Being Notes of a Family Cruise of Five Hundred Miles and 

 Return, in a Sloop- Yacht twenty three feet long, by Major 

 Sarasota and his Family. 



MAY 20$: After a consultation with all hands it was 

 decided to give my crew a day's liberty ashore. I 

 think letting them sleep the night before on shore in Mrs. 

 C.'s nice fresh beds must have had a demoralizing effect, 

 for they wanted to'have a spell of "cleaning up," and putting 

 things to rights. As they had behaved so well, and had not 

 slept in a real bed since Apalachicola I relaxed discipline a 

 little. As Eugene was to visit Manatee village for the 

 Weekly mail, and various supplies, I decided to run over 

 with him and get a few things for our use while down at 

 Sarasota. We went over in the boat provided by the 

 lighthouse establishment, as it was of so much lighter 

 draft than mine that no skiff would be needed in case we 

 wished to land where there was no wharf. This boat is 

 kept hoisted up on davits at the wharf, as experience has 

 demonstrated the necessity of taking all small craft out of 

 water where the changes of weather are so sudden, and 

 where there is no harbor whatever. It is quite a little job 

 to hoist out this one even with the appliances provided, as 

 she is twenty-three feet long, and sloop-rigged. She is of 

 what is known as the Staten Island model, and were it not 

 for the trouble of handling the jib-sheets would be as well 

 adapted for work on this coast as the Newport style or cat- 

 ri g- Like all other work done by contract for the Govern- 

 ment this boat when received was but a sham, not even 

 looking like what she ought to, for Eugene said she had 

 the queerest looking set of sails that ever he laid eyes upon; 

 they were fearfully and wonderfully made. Of course a 

 sailor or boatman taking the pride in his craft and business 

 which every one of them ought to, couldn't stand it to have 

 «is boat the laughing stock of every crew who passed him, 

 «s pass they all did. No more could my friend Eugene 

 stand it, and he went to work. He has a true mechanical eye, 

 *na saw at a glance that the model of the. boat was all 

 ri fiht, her lines were clean and true as need be; the fault 



did not lie there. But it did in the position of her mast, 

 and the cut and size of the sails. He completely rebuilt and 

 refound the boat, and to-day she is the fastest small craft 

 on the bay; her mainsail sets the flattest when close hauled 

 that I ever saw. Eugene has the frame of a schooner, 

 partly planked, on the stocks at Egmont which promises to 

 be, when finished, a perfect beauty. It will measure a 

 trifle over sixteen tons. The frame is of red cedar, natural 

 crook throughout, all got out by himself from gale-killed 

 timber, which has been seasoning for it is no knowing how 

 many years. I looked it over carefully with him, and he 

 explained to me how it was to be furnished. He has some 

 very excellent ideas on the subject, which, if carried out, 

 will make the vessel peculiarly well adapted for the use of 

 Northern tourists or sportsmen. Ample provision will be 

 made for the comfort of ladies on board, which will be a 

 new thing upon the coasting craft on this coast, and I can 

 conceive of no pleasanter way for a party of gentlemen 

 and their wives to spend their winter in Florida, or at least 

 a good part of it, than in cruising leisurely along from one 

 harbor to the next, from Cedar Keys to Key West. With 

 Eugene Coons at the helm of the "Halcyon," the time 

 thus spent could surely be looked back upon as "halcyon 

 days." 



But really it did not take Eugene and myself half as 

 long to get away from the island with the boat as it does 

 for me to get away from the island and its inhabitants with 

 my pen, although we waited for the sea breeze to set in 

 with its fair wind. The mouth of the Manatee river lies 

 nearly E. 8. E. from the light; the distance is called nine 

 miles. The village proper, where the stores and Post Of- 

 fice are, is seven miles from the mouth, but the whole dis- 

 tance, especially thf south bank, is thickly settled. 



As we left Egmont, we first steered for Passage Key, 

 which is a low, sandy and grassy islet lying in the S. W. 

 channel of Tampa bay entrance, between Egmont Key and 

 the north end of Pal ma Sola Key. So named because a 

 solitary royal palm formerly grew upon it. Passage Key 

 used to be the great resort for sea gulls during the laying 

 season. I once happened there, the first visitor after a 

 storm, and loaded a small sloop with eggs, which sold for 

 a good figure in Tampa. It was now the proper time for 

 eggs, but as we drew near the island there were so few 

 gulls to be seen that we deemed it not worth while to land. 

 They have been robbed so persistently for the past few 

 years that I don't wonder they have become somewhat dis- 

 couraged, and the great wonder of all is that they have not 

 been exterminated, as I doubt if a single sea gull has been 

 reared on the island for the last six or seven years. The 

 shear water, or grass gull, as they are sometimes called, 

 have better success, as their nest is always concealed among 

 the thick grass and briars, while the sea gulls proper lay 

 their eggs on the mostfexposed sand beach they can find, 

 not even going so far as to hollow out a place in the sand 

 for a nest. I wonder if each gull returns to brood over its 

 own eggs, or if they simply cover the first vacant nest they 

 find, and in that way make a company affair of it. I cer- 

 tainly do not see how one nest is different in any manner 

 from another, except in the number of eggs which may be 

 in it, from one to three. It is true that no two eggs are 

 spotted precisely alike, but no human eye can carry the dif- 

 ference so as to select it from half a dozen others, much less 

 from several hundreds or thousands as the gulls must do; 

 yet if they do recognize their own nest and eggs these mi- 

 nute mai ks must, to my mind, provide the key. I have 

 observed that when they take to breaking eggs, at the ap- 

 proach of an intruder, one gull will break several eggs 

 which may be several feet apart. 



After deciding that it was not worth while to make a 

 landing we bore away for the mouth of the Manatee. The 

 first buoy is nearly two miles out in the bay is placed in 

 mid-channel, painted black and white in perpendicular 

 stripes. The next buoy is upon the point of a broad shoal 

 which extends out from the mainland over a mile on the 

 north side of the channel. The edge of this shoal is 

 clearly marked and is often dry at low water. On the 

 south side of the channel there is a line of irregular shoals 

 which extend to the mouth of Palma Sola bay and across 

 it. There is often five feet of water on these shoals and 

 between them, and the mainland is a "swash" channel 

 which leads out from the mouth of the river. The promi- 

 nent landmark of the mouth of the river is a shell mound 

 some forty or fifty feet high. At is base upon the point is 

 a small building built of concrete. There is deep water 

 close in on this point, and if you are seeking a harbor run 

 right in behind it, and come to anchor in the cove which 



forms just beyond the cattle wharf. This harbor is quite 

 land-locked, and just at the head of the cove at the base of 

 the hill, not over fifty feet from the water, is a fine spring 

 bubbling up through the sand. 



The main ship'channel is on the north side of the en- 

 trance, close to. land; a "middle ground" separates it from 

 the soutlfchanneljwith only two or three feet of water on 

 it. The channel is buoyed for half the way up to the vil- 

 lage, and oyster bars will not be apt to trouble you until 

 after the last buoy is past. The channel is there staked, but so 

 many stakes have been driven for other purposes that it is 

 hard to tell which are to be steered by. 



At Manatee are several stores wherej3upplies can" be ob- 

 tained. That of Capt. Harles has the most extensive and 

 varied stock of any in South Florida. This being Saturday, 

 which is observed as a kind of market and holiday by the 

 people of the South, the village is full of country people, 

 some of jwhom had come as far as from Pease creek, a 

 three-days' journey with their ox-teams, to barter off their 

 hides, tallow, honey, etc., for flour and other luxuries. 

 Necessaries such as tobacco and a little "spirits" are, of 

 course, never forgotten. The whole family often take the 

 long journey together, camping out for the night wherever 

 it overtakes them, providing wood and water are handy, 

 as is usually the case almost anywhere. What a wild 

 look the women all have as they peer out from under the 

 little wagon cover. This passes off, however, when they 

 have swapped something for some store tobacco, and an 

 expression of serene content takes its place when ihey have 

 got the little old black pipe filled and lighted. Somehow they 

 don't take kindly to the home raised article, although as 

 fine tobacco is raised here as need be. One man had a load 

 which would stir up the fires in any hunter's heart. I saw 

 three hundred pounds of dried deer skins and sixty smoked 

 venison hams weighed and counted out from his wagon, 

 and the story the owner told would make it hard for a man 

 without incumberance or special engagements to possess his 

 soul in patience within the confines of Manatee village. He 

 came, he told us, from the borders of the Big Prairie, 

 tract of country which I think lies to the southward 

 Pease creek. That part of the country, had suffered much 

 from drought during the whole season, and the Big Cypress 

 which lies just to the northward of the Everglades, had, 

 as he expressed it, "gone plump dry." One of the results 

 of this was to drive all the game and other animals which 

 find a refuge there to other parts of the country, where 

 water could be procured, and one of these favored sections 

 was the Big Prairie. He was certain that if they would 

 only hold still long enough he could go out on to the prairie 

 at any hour of the day, and count three hundred deer or 

 more. He could go out on to it before day, when it was 

 calm so that the deer couldn't wind him, and after conceal- 

 ing himself in some tall grass or bunch of palmetto until 

 daylight came, lie still and shoot to his heart's content. 

 He had been obliged to stop for want of ammunition, 

 which I think was a good thing, for it was taking almost as 

 great an advantage of their distress as it is*to drive them 

 into a lake with hounds, and then after a guide has paddled 

 you alongside the poor frightened animal, to blow his 

 brains out with a breech loader, with all the modern im- 

 provements of wind gauge, vernier sights, etc. Lest some 

 of those who call that sport should get after that country- 

 man or myself for killing deer in May or June, as being 

 out of season, I will rise and explain that in South Florida 

 the does drop their fawns during the spring and fall. The 

 majority at the latter season, and so a close season cannot 

 be well kept without closing the whole year, but beside 

 that fact, is, that away down here, where game is still 

 moderately plenty, it is a well observed rule among hunters 

 to shoot nothing but bucks unless there is some very special 

 reason to kill a doe; being entirely out of meat at home, for 

 instance, and nothing but does to be found. All the hunt- 

 ing is what is known as "still hunting," so this choice can 

 be readily made. Very few keep dogs for driving deer, 

 and comparatively little fire hunting is done, and so as 

 long as the female, element is not disturbed it makes but 

 little difference at what time the bucks are killed. 



Manatee village is the headquarters of all land hunters 

 who come to South Florida, but there is so little worth 

 seeing in the immediate vicinity and the adjacent land, 

 which is of any account, is held at such a high figure that 

 many return disgusted. My advice is, if you are really in 

 earnest to settle in this region, don't pay any great atten- 

 tion to the abundant advice which will be proffered so 

 freely by every one with whom you come in contact, but 

 hire a horse and strike out for yourself. It makes bu, 



