338 



RECREATION. 



of these queer creatures would rise and go 

 flapping aimlessly off over the marsh, ut- 

 tering its sorry cry, but do what we would, 

 we never could get one. They were al- 

 ways out of range before we saw them. 

 They seemed to deride us as they flapped 

 and cackled their way along. The alliga- 

 tor hunters call them Hmpkins. 



After 2 days' paddling and poling we 

 floated into Lake Hickpoochee, a great 

 shallow pond 5 or 6 miles long and half 

 as broad, with no banks and only one good 

 camping spot near it. That consists of 

 a narrow bank of sand covered with low 

 bushes. Back of it is the sea of sawgrass, 



snakes in that marsh I ever saw, but we 

 wore canvas leggins and didn't pay much 

 attention to them. It took 4 teal or 3 mal- 

 lards to make us a square meal. We 

 v/ould get back to camp in time to clean 

 them before dark, and then lie around the 

 fire while they cooked. Oh, those little 

 fat teal! It makes my month water now 

 to think of them. We put them in the pot 

 and stewed them tender; then laid them 

 on their backs in the bake oven, with a 

 slice of bacon on each breast, and 

 baked them brown. From the broth left 

 in the pot we made gravy that would make 

 a man "hit his daddy." Ducks, gravy, hot 



UP THE MYSTERIOUS RIVER. 



which surrounds these lakes in every di- 

 rection for miles and miles. Several 

 canals, now almost obliterated, mark the 

 vain attempt of the Drainage Company to 

 reclaim this vast morass. Occasionally 

 one finds the rusty skeletons of what were 

 once powerful dredges. 



We spent a week at that place. Back 

 in the sawgrass were some open sloughs, 

 where we killed all the ducks and snipe 

 we could use. I also secured 3 beautiful 

 skins of the roseate spoonbill, or, as we 

 call them, pink curlew. Our principal 

 meal in camp was always supper, so in 

 the afternoon we would go out in the 

 marsh and kill our ducks for the evening 

 feast. The birds were feeding at that 

 time of clay, so one would take a stand 

 behind a bunch of sawgrass and the other 

 would v^de around and drive them over 

 him. There were the most moccasin 



biscuit and sweet potatoes were our bill 

 of fare every night. I'm ashamed of it, 

 but that week we lived to eat, and every 

 day we let out a hole in our belts. 



The beautiful, unfortunate plume birds 

 are gone. We saw 8 specimens of the 

 snowy heron on our trip, and of white 

 egrets not one. We have a law for their 

 protection which is never enforced. 

 George Hendry, who runs a trading store 

 on the Upper Caloosahatchee, told me 

 about 3,000 plumes were collected in the 

 big cypress country last season, principally 

 by Indians. There ?re many otters in the 

 sawgrass, but. happily for them, it is al- 

 most impossible to get at them. 



From our camp on Hickpoochee, we 

 pulled out one day for Okeechobee, sep- 

 arated from it only by a few miles of cus- 

 tard-apple swamp and sawgrass. We en- 

 tered the 3-mile canal, and it took us 4 



