402 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 15, 188ft 



Address all communicatwm to the Forest and Stream PUI>. Co. 



HUNTING IN FLORIDA IN 1 874.-V. 



OUR camping place for the week proved beset with 

 mosquitoes and fleas beyond anything we had ex- 

 perienced in the wilderness, utterly banishing sleep till 

 after midnight, and sheer exhaustion compelled it. We 

 could in a measure relieve ourselves from mosquitoes by 

 filling our little tent, as we lay down, with the dense 

 smoke of fat pine knots. But, for the fleas there was no 

 relief, often observing them to jump from our blankets in 

 swarms as we hung them out to dry in the morning. A 

 second trip would suggest a bountiful supply of oil of 

 pennyroyal with which to perfume our garments, and 

 which is said to be flea-expelling. At this stage of our 

 trip we began to suffer from the stinging bites of the 

 black gnats, an insect so small as hardly to be detected 

 with the naked eye, but whose bite sends a thrill through 

 the nervous system altogether disproportionate to its size. 

 To this annoyance, unlike that of the fleas, if one is pro- 

 vided with essence of pennyroyal, there is no remedy. 



A heavy rain for three days and nights kept us under 

 shelter most of the time, blowing the great quantity of 

 eggs we had brought from the "cypress-slues"— our boat- 

 man Jim meanwhile making a fish net of stout twine to 

 use for seining the carp and small fish that abounded in 

 the stream near whose mouth we were encamped. 

 When finished we set it a little way up the creek, ex- 

 pecting in the morning to find a variety inclosed in its 

 meshes. But instead, an alligator, or perhaps an otter, 

 swam through it and tore it to shreds, thuB in one 

 moment ruining our boatman's work of two days. 



The chuck-wills-widow, the analogue of our northern 

 whip-poor-will, enlivened the nights with its plaintive 

 note. To obtain one, as they are utterly secluded during 

 the day, Jim fastened my dark lantern to the top of his 

 head and going toward the sound, soon detected the bird 

 in the cimmerean darkness, by the shine of its eyes, and 

 secured it, though badly mutilated by the shot, as he was 

 unable to judge of his distance from it. As soon as the 

 norther of three days had blowed out, Fred spent a day 

 across the Indian River shooting terns, skimmers and 

 oyster-catchers, which rose from the water in flocks of 

 thousands, while I prepared my large turtle for preserva- 

 tion, poisoning the carcass and salting the meat for our 

 larder. The following day, I hired the stalwart negro to 

 accompany Jim and myself in a large boat to the Indian 

 River Inlet, hoping to secure a sawfish. These fish come 

 in from the ocean through the inlet to prey upon the schools 

 of fish that a 5 : ound in Indian River. Swimming close to the 

 bottom, when they perceive a school above, they quickly 

 elevate their toothed upper jaw and whirling it about 

 in the school, mangle and kill many to be eaten at their 

 leisure. Our boat being provided with a coil of rope about 

 100ft. in length, attached to a harpoon, we paddled gently 

 where the water was about 5ft. deep, till discerning our 

 game on the bottom, about 12ft. in length, Jim drove the 

 harpoon completely through its body. Instantly the fish 

 started for the ocean through the inlet, drawing out the 

 line over the gunwale so rapidly as to make it smoke. 

 The line having been made fast to the bowpost, when the 

 end was reached, boat and all followed for half a mile 

 with a velocity so great that I quickly drew my hatchet 

 from my belt and stood ready to cut the rope, if the bow 

 gave indications of going under as the fish went into 

 deeper water. At length he was wearied with the exer- 

 tion, and slacked up, when we began to play the crea- 

 ture, till worrying him on to a shoal place, I had a fine 

 exhibition of the way he gyrates his saw when mutilating 

 his prey. At length seizing a favorable moment as his 

 head was raised out of the water, I planted a rifle-ball 

 just midway between the eyes, when a quiver ran through 

 his frame and he was dead. None judged him to weigh 

 less than 8001bs. Towing him across the river to our 

 camp, it w^as the work of an entire day to skin and pack 

 the specimen for transportation. 

 While at this camp one of the better class of citizens 



{jrivately interviewed me to learn what I might have 

 earned during my forty days of intimacy with the mur- 

 derers of Mr. Lang, saying he had in Ms pocket a warrant 

 received by the last mail from the Governor of the State 

 for the arrest of Mr. J. and Tom and a neighbor of theirs, 

 who were understood to be the guilty parties; and sug- 

 gested that, if I would leave interrogatories with a notary 

 public before going out of the State it might further the 

 ends of justice. Replying that I had carefully avoided 

 any allusion to the murder myself, yet Mr. J., in our long 

 tramps alone, had seemed to find relief in freeing his 

 mind to me of his own accord, and had revealed enough 

 to satisfy me who were the guilty parties, yet I could not 

 betray confidence unless subpoenaed from Massachusetts 

 as a hearsay witness. I have learned from newspapers 

 that soon after I left the region a determined sheriff went 

 into the settlement with a posse, and shot Mr. J. dead in 

 his tracks while resisting arrest, but brought Tom to 

 trial, who was, for the want of positive evidence, con- 

 victed only of manslaughter, and died within a year in 

 the State prison. 



In nine days Erwin was strong enough to be conveyed 

 to a couch prepared for him in a small sailboat, and we 

 started northward. It was our intention to start by 1 

 o'clock at the latest, and were ourselves all ready, but 

 Jim's laziness delayed us till 0. Had we not had a super- 

 abundance of experience already in the thrif tlessness of 

 the Crackers, we should have gone crazy at the needless 

 delay. The greatest boasters of what" they can do, but 

 the poorest performers of what they promise, they are 

 unique in their characteristics, and to the enterprising 

 Yankee a marvel of incongruities. When the anthro- 

 pologist has satisfactorily traced the Hottentot and the 

 North American Indian to their origin, he may turn his 

 attention to the origin of the Florida Cracker, and he will 

 find a much harder problem to solve. I have been a far 

 more patient man since my trip to Florida than before, 

 two months' experience in Crackerdom doing more for 

 me in the cultivation of that grace than a half century 

 previously. 



With a favoring breeze we made twelve miles by 10 

 o'clock and camped on the west shore of Indian River on 

 the sand, making Erwin as soft a couch of leaves as pos- 

 sible beneath our mosquito bars, while Fred and myself I 

 lay down by the fire. By 3 o'clock the mosquitoes and ' 



sand-fleas got the mastery of us and banished all sleep 

 thereafter. For fresh water we dug a hole about 10ft. 

 from the shore which soon filled with water percolating 

 the sand, the cohesive attraction of the sand retaining 

 the salt. Breakfasting upon broiled turtle steak, we 

 reached a brown pelican rookery on an island of eight 

 or ten acres in extent. Our large boat grounding about a 

 mile distant we all went overboard but Erwin, andpushed 

 it for half a mile. Then anchoring and pushing our small 

 rowboat a quarter of a mile further we left it and waded 

 as much more to behold the greatest curiosity of the kind 

 I had ever dreamed of. The island was mostly covered 

 with mangrove trees, a kind of banyan, whose limbs 

 turn down from the height of 18 or 20ft. and take root, 

 thus forming an uninterrupted canopy over a large part 

 of the island. An acre, more or less, was covered with a 

 clump of taller trees, in which blue herons were nesting. 

 Hoping these might prove to be Wurdemann, I first gave 

 thy attention to them, but through the failure of Fred's 

 gun to fire as the bird rose from its nest, lost my chance, 

 to my great disappointment. Having secured the eggs 

 we turned toward the pelicans. The mangrove is a slowly 

 decaying tree, and though at some time this grove musthave 

 been thrifty — probably before the pelicans took possession 

 of it — now every tree was barren of leaves and life. As 

 we drew near every branch seemed covered with nests as 

 closely as they could be packed — indeed so near oftentimes 

 that a bird sitting on its own could easily dip its bill into 

 the nest of its neighbor. On one tree not 20ft. high or 

 more than 6 or 8ft. broad I counted twenty-two nests, all 

 occupied. Acres of the ground also were so thickly cov- 

 ered that it was easy to step from nest to nest across 

 a full acre. In 'one nest there might be three or four 

 eggs, in no instance more, and in its neighbor young ones 

 in different stages of growth. To these last the old birds 

 were continually coming with fish in their pouches, 

 which they disgorge into the capacious maws of the 

 young by both dropping the lower mandible and the 



garent bird apparently contracting its pouch from the 

 ottom so as to empty its contents into the pouch of its 

 young. How wonderful the instinct that could find its 

 own nest among so many thousand and also adapt its 

 selection of fish from day to day to the varying size of 

 its young, for I saw the old feeding young nearly as large 

 as themselves as well as those just hatched. Rather than 

 climb the filthy trees we took our eggs from those nests 

 on the ground, gathering a waterpail full in a few min- 

 utes, always selecting the f reshly laid ones, and might 

 easily have gathered barrels of them. Securing eggs and 

 studying their habits, we commenced securing birds. It 

 was an easy matter to get three or four in a range and 

 drop most or all at a shot. At every crack of the gun 

 thousands would rise from the trees, darkening the sun, 

 but soon settle down again. After a while our continual 

 firing so disconcerted them that they settled down by 

 the thousands on the w r ater around the island , forming 

 semi-circular ranks with two or three feet between, as 

 though platooned under leaders. For my own use I 

 brought away eighteen birds, representing a series in 

 every stage of plumage, from a fledgling just escaping 

 from the egg to the mature bird. 



Fearing to leave Erwin longer in the broiling sun, we 

 left the fascinating spot, and camped on a sand-bar 

 at the mouth of St. Sebastian River, intending to spend at 

 least three days in camp, as famous large alligators are 

 found in the brackish water at the mouth of the stream. 

 On a hummock within a mile a squatter had succeeded 

 in cultivating, with great success, a plantation of oranges, 

 bananas, mangoes, etc. Not to be hindered in skinning 

 my pelicans, I hired the squatter's son to watch the 

 mouth of the river for a large alligator. About 1 o'clock- 

 he came running to the camp, saying, "the biggest 'gator 

 he ever saw was coming down the river." Calling Fred 

 and Jim, and snatching up our guns and rifles, we ran to 

 the end of the sand-bar, two or three hundred feet away, 

 and sure enough, judging from the distance between his 

 snout and his eyes, he must have been at least fifteen 

 feet in length. Just as we were launching the rowboat 

 to make sure of him, a scream from the camp hurried, us 

 back, to find Erwin was suddenly attacked with the 

 severest chill I had yet seen him have. Greatly alarmed, 

 I ordered all things packed as quickly as possible, and in 

 an hour we were under sail with a stiff breeze, towing 

 me in the rowboat that I might continue skinning my 

 pelicans, as there was not room in the sail-boat with 

 Erwin stretched at full length. The wind increasing, in 

 less than an horn - the tow-line broke, and before the "sail- 

 boat could be turned about, I was a half-mile astern, 

 without paddle or oar. Recovered at last, darkness set 

 in and we camped on a sand-bar. Rain setting in, Fred 

 and Jim were well soaked in the course of the night, 

 while I watched with Erwin in the tent without a wink 

 of sleep. 



Next day the wind was dead ahead, and we were com- 

 pelled to remain at camp till 4 o'clock P. M., when we 

 started, and by 8 had reached Eau Gallie. where we had 

 passed a night as we went out. Here I got Erwin into 

 the shelter of a log hut, and as only thirty-five miles re- 

 mained to Sand Point, I planned to send him on the mor- 

 row by another boat to that place, where he could have 

 good nursing and a good, bed, till Fred and I should 

 arrive by the way of Banana River, a route twenty miles 

 longer, but on which we hoped to get white pelicans and 

 shore birds; but on awaking a rainless norther was blow- 

 ing so furiously our boatman dared not go on. Wind- 

 bound, I tried to think how I could turn the day to some 

 account, having had to throw away all but four of my 

 series of pelicans on account of the hot sun ruining them 

 before I could skin them, through my hasty departure 

 from St. Sebastian. Learning that there was an Indian 

 mound over across the Indian River, three or four miles 

 distant, I requested Jim to take me over in a boat, but he 

 declined, saying, "No boat could live in such a sea." 

 Another Cracker was willing to risk it for a dollar and a 

 half. As the wind blew fortunately for crossing, though 

 dangerously, I took my spade and trowel, and forbidding 

 Fred to risk the voyage with me, I crossed over, the par- 

 tially decked bow going under several times, but skill- 

 ful management carried us across safely, though well 

 drenched with the spray. Ascending the mound, about 

 thirty feet in height, and well wooded with wild orange 

 growth, I succeeded in exhuming a perfect skeleton, hav- 

 ing its knees bent to its chin, and facing the south— thus 

 fulfilling at the last chance one of the things I promised 

 Prof. Jeffries Wyman I would try to do. "It is an ill 

 wind that blows nobody any good," but Erwin's sick- 

 ness seriously interfered with my finishing up Florida 



according to my plans; but as I could not see how I -vrao i 

 responsible, I knew it was all right, and according to the 

 plans of my heavenly Father, who is "too wise to err and i 

 too good to be unkind." 



The norther blowed out during the night and we started 

 about 8 for Sand Point direct, giving up for his sai e 

 Banana River and the white pelicans. Before starting I 

 gave Erwin a morphine pill to alleviate the pain in \\ B 

 left side, the second time I had opened my medicine case 

 during the trip — the first being, as stated in the earlier 

 part of the narrative, to give one of my phials of quinine 

 to a man on Ten Mile Creek who camped near me one 

 night with his wife and seven small children, t wo of them 

 very sick with fever. We parted in the morning, but lie 'i 

 sent me word by a cowboy two weeks afterward that my 

 quinine saved the lives of his children. 



Having failed to secure aWurdemann heron at the pel- 

 ican rookery, I kept on the lookout for one, and durW 1 

 this day's sail espied a nest on the right bank, on a tall ! 

 pine, which Jim declared belonged to Wurdetnann. i 

 Sending him ashore with the rifle, he brought me one of : 

 the old birds and a half-fledged young he found under 

 the nest. This specimen differs materially from the book i 

 measurements of the great blue heron, Ardea hero^} 

 but so little in plumage that I was still in doubt, and. 1 

 obliged to wait till I reached Washington to discuss the I 

 matter with Prof. Baird and test the find. Night over- 

 taking us ten miles from Sand Point, we were foraffl ftf 

 camp again on the sand just opposite the lower end of I 

 Merritt's Island. Pitching my tent on the windwardjdjle.' 

 of a rousing fire, and making as nice a bed of pahaSro' 

 leaves for Erwin inside as I could, I gave the tent up to 

 him and was gratified to learn in the morning that be had. 

 slept well. To quote from a letter to my wife written on I 

 the sailboat after leaving this camp: "This encoura|6t£ 

 me to hope that after a sail of two hours I might yet have 

 the gratification I had been all week anticipating of bay- 1 

 ing a quiet Sabbath at Sand Point, and revisiting that I 

 Sabbath School in the pine woods, whose acquaintance I 

 had made on my outward trip, but the' wind was contrajfeH 

 and so we add another day of holy time to the last aeven 

 Sabbaths unrecognized entirely as such, except in our " 

 tent, and two of those necessarily spent in traveling with, 

 an ox-team in Okechobee swamps, as the journal of mjl 

 sojourn in the wilderness will explain. This journal, 1 

 by the way, is wholly in my mind, as, till leaving J™' 

 Capron last Monday, I have had no possible opportunity for 

 writing except the few postals I have forwarded. Now I 

 hope to send a postal almost daily, from the time I leave 

 Jacksonville, and a letter weekly, giving daily particulars. 

 This will keep you posted on my movements as you could 

 not have been while I was out of civilization, amragl 

 murderers and ex-Ku-Kluxans, for at this distance I dare, 

 write so, while had I written out my experience in tuej 

 w-ilderness, and it had fallen into the hands of-jBfel| 

 wretches prowling through that region, it might hate 

 cost me my life. Yet I was well treated by every one, l 

 though I had to hear the most outrageous lang™8| 

 respecting the 'Yanks.' I must confess I felt safeMW 

 having my revolver under my head and our guns betti?j|P 

 us as we slept in the tent, according to CromweirSM 

 junction to 'trust in God and keep our powder dryi^Rp 

 always sleep the foreside of the tent, as Fred is a sound 

 sleeper, while I usually wake at the tread of a 'poseulm 

 within ten feet of me; still, into such a wild region yflu; 

 must go if you would study nature first hand instead of' 

 second. Hence the reason so few naturalists do anything 

 more than study books and take the observations of 

 others and use them second-handed. To a great extent I 

 have done so, but always to my great dissatisfaction, you 

 know. I now feel as though I had a right to speak and 

 lecture on some subjects pertaining to Natural Histffl^j 

 'ex-cathedra' authoritatively. I cannot but feel greatly 

 pleased with my experience for the last two months 33 

 well as grateful, I trust, for God's preserving care. "W«J 

 are just landing at Sand Point, at 11 o'clock A. M." 



Learning that a man living a mile in the interior had. a 

 spring sulky, I sent a lad for it to convey Erwin to a suit" 

 able lodging place for the night and on the next day to 1 

 the steamer at Lake Harney, twenty-two miles distant 

 on which we proposed to sail down the St. John's fb 

 Jacksonville. Having thus disposed of my sick comwfe 

 ion, with gratitude for his convalescence, I chose a 6iljt* 

 able camping place for the afternoon and night, arid 

 leaving Fred and our guide to take our luggage ashore, 

 went myself in search of a suitable team to transfer Ofl 

 on the morrow to Lake Harney. Having secured a mule' 

 team I hastened back to find the hist package just piled, 

 in a piazza of a store, when a furious thunder showflf 

 broke upon us. During my absence the mail-boat JB 

 come up from Fort Capron, bringing Dr. P. with three 

 other passengers. It being Sunday the proprietor ofaBl 

 store was absent, leaving for twelve men and all their lug- 

 gage only the piazza, Gft.x20ft., for shelter. Feeling it 

 was more important to preserve dry our luggage than 

 ourselves we gave to it the benefit of our blankets m| 

 overcoats and took our own chance unsheltered for the 

 most part with the probability of lying down at night 

 drenched to the skin. Toward evening the rain ceased, and 

 the proprietor of the store returning, he kindly ottered \&- 

 all lodging on his attic floor. My rubber blanket serV^i 

 to soften the couch of hard pine, and either it or fatUH 

 induced sound sleep, to find on waking in the morning a 

 cloudless sky. 



After cooking and eating our breakfast of coffee, tfflaj 

 and hardtack, I commenced packing the cart, while Frau 1 

 skinned three Bhoveler ducks and a woodpecker lie had 

 shot before breakfast. This done, he lent his aid to pack^ 

 ing, but was soon interrupted at seeing a monstrous b)B» 

 hog run off with one of his duck skins. Giving chasevBjj 

 overtook it in a boggy swamp, but had hardly deposited 

 the skin in a safe place, when the same or another hBg ; 

 seized another duck skin, and in a trice chawed off onf 

 leg, thus spoiling it as a specimen for mounting. WiU 

 hog tribulations never cease, thought I. Our thiflfit 

 packed, my final experience in "Cracker" honesty riB 

 realized. Jim demurred to my construction of the bar- 

 gain I had made with him two weeks before, to takeffl 

 to Sand Point in his sailboat and there lea ve us, at' Bt 

 much per day, more or less number of days. He mSgj 

 out almost as large a bill for extras as the bargain called 

 for, when there were to be no extras of any kind, unles* 

 providential ones, and such he could not say there wt 

 been. After an hour of abuse, with charges of Yankee 

 meanness and some threatening of legal redress, BS 

 calmed down and took his pay at my first calculation! % 

 then donated him my camp cooking utensils that baft 



