
RAMBLES IN FLORIDA. 399 
safely in a four-ton sloop, and seated ourselves upon the top 
of the cargo like statues upon a pedestal. The lines were 
"let go," and after beating in a light wind the sloop was at 
the wharf by noon. 
When a steamer arrives the event is published by a cer- 
tain number of strokes on the Court House bell; hence the 
crowd at the wharf. Friends met us as soon as we landed, 
and with their assistance we found an unoccupied house and 
an unemployed negro; the former was at once hired for a 
camp, the latter for a commissary and quartermaster.* In 
two hours after landing we were “at rights” and housekeep- 
ing. Elated with this wonderful dispatch, in the fulness of 
our joy we thought the millennium not more than "two 
blocks off,” and rashly named our quarters “Camp Delight ;" 
but we had unwisely crowed before we were out of the 
woods, as will presently be seen. 
The population of Tampa is variously stated at from eight 
hundred to one thousand (people), of all sizes and colors ; 
but this does not include the million (of fleas) that nightly 
met in mass-meeting at Camp Delight, and compelled us, 
both in sorrow and in anger, to change the name to Camp 
Misery. The fleas of California, the black-flies of the Lake 
Superior swamps, the mosquitoes of the Ohio Valley, all of 
these we had met on their own ground and never winced, 
but the fleas of Tampa proved invincible. We thought of 
the say ing of a German poet, "God made the world, but the 
devil made the flea.” 
The appearance of the town creates à favorable impres- 
sion, for it is well planned, the streets being wide and regu- 
lar and the buildings comely; many of the streets and yards 
are ornamented with trees ; in some of the latter the bananas | 
were just shooting up new leaves to replace those that were 
eut down at Christmas time by an unusual and severe frost. 
A large specimen of the American aloe (Agave Americana) 
*Soon after our departure from Tampa, our colored quartermaster Was elected City 


