458 RAMBLES IN FLORIDA. 
twenty feet square, and about six feet high at the eaves, and 
the roof is sharply pitched so as to shed the rain rapidly. 
The frame is made of small poles or saplings, upon which 
the leaves of the palmetto are tacked or tied, course after 
course, overlapped like shingles or weather-boards upon a 
common house. Sometimes a floor is laid and a board door 
hung to the frame. An excellent shelter for a warm climate 
is thus made, sufficiently close for protection against ordi- 
nary storms, a good screen from the sun, and open enough 
to admit of ventilation. Exceeding caution in the use of fire 
is requisite, and cooking must be done outside, and at some 
distance away. 
We were kindly furnished with food and lodging by our 
host, an old Scotch sailor, with a bushy beard which rivalled 
the Spanish moss in color and in length : 
* Like a wolf’s was his shaggy head, 
His teeth as large and white; 
His beard of gray and russet blended; 
On his hairy arm imprinted 
Was an anchor, azure tinted.” 
After boxing around the globe for a quarter of a century 
he finally drifted into this out-of-the-way corner of the 
planet. With a palmetto cabin, plenty of oysters, game and 
fish, he lives a free and easy life, with few luxuries and fewer 
cares: his gun and dog, his boat and fishing gear, supply 
both food and recreation; like most sailors and sportsmen, 
he is a good cook ; as to his knowledge of the culinary art, 
inquiry is best answered by the repeated sorties made by us 
upon the well cooked rations. “Actions speak louder than 
words.” 
From the salt works a trail leads across the sands, then 
through a bit of trampled marsh, over the sands again to 
shell-heaps large and small. There is only one of the heaps 
of sufficient size to be dignified by the name of mound; this 



.. latter covers an area of half an acre and is fifteen feet in 
. height, at the highest point; it is composed entirely of 
‘Shells; and the mound and heaps and ridges of shell, ares 

