322 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Nov. 15, 1888. 



OUR LAKE. 



LOCH LOMOND'S depths are dusky brown, 

 Purple her Mils with heather, 

 Prom shore to shore her bare peaks frown 

 In mild and stormy weather. 



Green are the slopes of Windermere, 



All pure her limpid waters, 

 A liquid gem, without a peer 



To Britain's sons and daughters. 



But thou art all, oh, lake of lakes! 



Lake George, thou art unequalled; 

 Thy beetling crags the storm cloud breaks, 



With elves thine isles are peopled. 



The mighty eagle rests his wing 



Where rear thy rocky shoulders, 

 The tiniest harebells shyly cling 



Among thy shore-bound boulders. 



As in a hoat I rock and swing. 



By summer scenes enraptured, 

 No lake the old world poets sing 



Has thus my senses captured. 



Amelia Kempsham,. 



NOTES ON WESTERN FLORIDA. 



II.— DOWN THE APALACHEE. 



FROM Chattahoochee we retraced our way a mile or 

 so to the mouth of the Flint River, and ascended it 

 thirty-eight miles to a little place called Bainbridge, ar- 

 riving about six o'clock in the afternoon. It is a quiet, 

 sleepy old Georgia town, with a lazy, dolee far niente 

 air very enchanting and rare after the general hum and 

 bustle of the more progressive world. Everything here 

 takes life easily; the "razor-back" hogs that sleep in the 

 streets will scarcely move out of your way; the dozing- 

 dogs will open one eye to squint at you, then snap at an 

 obtrusive fly and go to sleep again, too "tired" to bark; 

 the very horses nod in the sunshine, as they stand 

 hitched to the racks that are in front of every store. All 

 is peace and quiet and the inhabitants sit around in front 

 of their shops and whittle, whittle, whittle, the live long 

 day. But it is a lovely old Southern town, with glorious 

 avenues of moss-grown oaks, through which the sun 

 comes in a softened light. There are pretty old homes, 

 and the loveliest of flowers everywhere. The very stu- 

 pidity of the place is its chief attraction. It is a spot 

 where one can sleep and eat and do nothing else without 

 being any different from most around him. It would be 

 rather a good place for "Ouida" to found another novel, 

 if her highness wotild ever admit that there is anything 

 poetic in America; she would find her ever-present liz- 

 ard sunning itself on a rock, and perhaps some of her 

 other accessories, but the pale languid hero with muscles 

 of steel would, I fear, have to be (as usual) invented. 



We did not leave Bainbridge until after midnight, and 

 the next morning found us once more in the main river 

 some miles below the junction. 



From this point the name and character of the stream 

 change; henceforth it is the Apalachee River, and the 

 banks, which have hitherto been high or at least dry, now 

 assume a swampy nature; vegetation becomes more tropi- 

 cal, palmettos and Spanish bayonets giving the woods 

 somewhat of the appearance of a Floridian forest as rep- 

 resented in the typical woodcuts of a school geography. 

 Cypresses, with their curiously contorted roots arid 

 straight, columnlike trunks, are on every hand. Herons 

 and cranes spring up and awkwardly fly away at the 

 noise of the approaching steamer, and* at last some one 

 cries "Alligator!" and the first of the hundreds of these 

 saurians is greeted with a volley of pistol shots from the 

 deck passengers below. This served as a pointer to our 

 party, and the Winchesters were forthwith drawn from 

 their covers and made ready for future opportunities. 

 These occurred to our heart's content after the sun had 

 made his rays more felt, and we kept popping away with 

 our rifles with great regularity throughout the day; but 

 shooting at a moving object from the deck of a moving 

 boat is rather uncertain work and the number of slain 

 was totally disproportionate to the quantity of ammuni- 

 tion used. We did kill quite a number, "however, and 

 had the satisfaction of seeing them turn their white bel- 

 lies upward for a moment and then sink slowly. When 

 wounded they would disappear under water amid a tre- 

 mendous splashing, and one huge fellow that was hard 

 hit sprang, during his struggles, completely clear of the 

 water, showing a great length of body. Several times 

 during the day, on rounding sharp bends, a half dozen 

 would be seen stretched out in the warm sand of some 

 bar; these were "pie" opportunities for us, and our bat- 

 tery seldom failed to score. One little fellow, about four 

 feet long, was discovered securely ensconced hi the fork 

 ot a tree overhanging the water, thus forever cutting him 

 out of a place m that riddle the answer to which is "Be- 

 cause neither can climb a tree." I know that it is a com- 

 mon impression that the alligator is impregnable in all 

 but certain places— the eyes, nose and just under the 

 shoulder, besides of course the breast and belly— but 

 during a somewhat extensive experience in Florida and 

 other tropical lands, I have killed a great many of these 

 reptiles, and my experience has been that, if properly 

 armed, a ,44-cal. bullet will lay low the most gigantic of 

 the species. Of course, a rifle ball striking the scales at a 

 very acute angle will often glance, as is the case with the 

 breast of a turkey or goose; but if the striking angle is 

 anything like 45°, the distance not too great, and the 

 charge of powder 40grs., I think the chances of brute 

 versus rifle are poor. It is so easy for one to think he has 

 struck his alhgater, when he has in reality made a miss; 

 the ball strikes the water a few inches from its mark 

 makes a splash and rouses the dormant animal, who vio- 

 lently strikes out with his tail and disappears, leaving the 

 rifleman who is always loth to acknowledge a miss 

 shaking his head and making comments on the touofi- 

 ness of the scales and the beautv of his last shot 



About 10 o'clock we came upon a large flock of wild 

 tin-keys grazing along the edge of the water. This was 

 the signal for a most terrific fusilade and several fell to 

 our fire, though the captain was unable to stop and brin°- 

 our game to bag. From this point we frequently passed 

 droves, and had a dozen good shots at these magnificent 

 birds— which we could have taken advantage of —and the 



day's sport would have shown a large score had we shot 

 them and stopped to collect. 



Occasionally during the day we passed long rafts of 

 logs slowly wending their way by the force of the cur- 

 rent to Apalachicola. where there are extensive saw-mills. 

 These rafts were generally manned by three or four hands, 

 rough, semi-barbarous fellows, who spend nine-tenths of 

 their lives in these swamps, cutting out the timber, and 

 who are as much inured to the miasmas, and almost as 

 amphibious as their only companions, the alligators and 

 turtles. 



There was an old lumberman on board with whom 

 scraped up quite an acquaintance. He was one of the 

 real "old timers," and had spent his entire life in these 

 wilds cutting timber and hunting. He was a typical 

 specimen of the class, with his long, gaunt form, yellow, 

 parchmeut-like skin and piercing black eyes that looked 

 fiercely at you from under a veritable jungle of eye- 

 brows; to complete the picture, in addition to wearing 

 his hair long, he carried one of the old-fashioned muzzle- 

 loading rifles, which he upheld as to its superiority with 

 his whole heart, evincing a great contempt for everythini 

 modern, and the Winchester repeater in particular, 

 argued long with him, but, of course, could no more 

 change his mind than I could have altered the course of 

 the river. Now, my experience has been that the much 

 vaunted accuracy claimed for the muzzleloader at short 

 range is all absurdity, when — understand me — that arm is 

 in the hands of a hunter. The accuracy of any weapon 

 depends largely upon the invariable uniformity of the 

 charge, and I hold it to be almost impossible for any one 

 in the woods, while in the excitement of the chase, to 

 load with the accurate precision absolutely necessary to 

 accurate results. For match shooting it is different. 

 When one has ample time to measure precisely the charge 

 of powder, and weigh exactly the ball, it is very probable 

 that they are the equal of the more modern and certainly 

 more convenient arm. My swamp friend and myself had 

 a match during the day, when we stopped at a landing to 

 take in an unusually large load of wood. I managed to 

 beat him rather badly at a distance of 100yds., but did 

 not ascribe my success so much to his bad shooting as to 

 the fact that he measured his charge of powder by pour- 

 ing it in the palm of his hand. 



The lower river is very tortuous, winding through the 

 never-ending forest and twisting and doubling on itself 

 in a way that bids defiance to all points of the compass. 

 In places these bends are so sharp and the river so narrow 

 that boats are obliged to stop and back in order to fetch. 

 At times all progress seems barred by an impenetrable 

 wall of foliage, when a narrow way opens to one side, 

 into which a skillful turn of the wheel neatly rounds us. 

 Everywhere is swamp, mysterious and impenetrable, 

 stretching away on either hand, utterly impassable except 

 in places by boats, and utterly unexplored. Half a mile 

 away from the borders of the stream are doubtless vast 

 sections that have never been seen by man. 



I remarked a very curious feature on the lower river; 

 sometimes for miles the flowing water would be separated 

 from the swamp and back water at the sides by a regular 

 rampart some five feet high, and so perfect as to resemble 

 the earthworks of anarrny; it was very curious; and on 

 the summit of these breastworks were found the flocks of 

 turkeys of which I have spoken. 



Every few miles a stop would be made at some settle- 

 ment; here we always had to pass quite a siege of scru- 

 tiny, the whole population grouping around the one store 

 would gaze at us with bovine steadfastness, interrupted 

 only by our departure. The Florida "cracker" was in all 

 his glory, leaning against a pine tree, his slouch wsol hat 

 puUed over a face that " 'twere better to hide," one hand 

 deep in his trouser's pocket and the other hanging by the 

 thumb to the one suspender — not an interesting nor even 

 picturesque character. 



Iola, now consisting of only five or six houses, was at one 

 time the northern terminus of a railroad between it and 

 the old town of St. Joseph; the road was abandoned and 

 torn up long before the war, and the southern point has 

 now disappeared as completely from the earth as if it had 

 never existed. I once camped several days on the site of 

 St. Joseph without knowing there ever had been a town 

 within twenty miles of the place; however, of this more 

 in the future. 



Three miles back from Iola is a widening of the Chip- 

 ola River, that goes by the name of the "Dead Lakes." 

 The fishing here certainly exceeds anything I have ever 

 heard of or seen; it is the only place that I have ever 

 visited where the hackneyed talk of fish "biting at a bare 

 hook," "pulling them out till you tire of the sport," and 

 "biting as fast as you put your line in the water," is lit- 

 erally true. Parties go to this point every spring from 

 Eufaula and Columbus, and camp to enjoy the excep- 

 tional sport. 



Just after leaving Iola, the mate called out from the 

 upper deck, "Look at that bear," and sure enough, there 

 on the bank, not thirty yards away, was a good-sized 

 specimen of Bruin. As fortune would have it, none of 

 us had our rifles handy, and notwithstanding a most 

 frantic dive for weapons by all three, he escaped into. the 

 forest in safety, leaving us in a most discontented frame 

 of mind. 



We. passed several logging camps in the afternoon. 

 They generally consisted of a box-like shed 6x6ft. in size, 

 perched upon piles 10ft. above the limited area of dry 

 ground that formed their base, and accessible only by a 

 pole with pieces of wood nailed across it for steps, like 

 the ascent to a chicken house. In these hovels the hardy 

 timber getters spend most of their sleeping hours, sur- 

 rounded by miasmatic swamps and vast wastes of forest. 



About 6 o'clock we sighted Apalachicola, across five 

 miles of salt meadows, at which distance it has quite a 

 city-like appearance, and remoteness, ever kind to ruins, 

 throws on its walls and brick piles an air of magnitude 

 and magnificence that a nearer acquaintance does not 

 sustain. 



Apalachicola has a past greater than her present, a 

 future greater than either. Some twentv-five years ago 

 this was the principal outlet for almost the entire cotton 

 product of that fertile country adjacent to the Chatta- 

 hoochee River; it was from here that before the building 

 of the network of railroads which now cross and recross 

 the cotton belt, some 200,000 bales were annuallv shipped 

 direct to Europe. In those days it was a booming city, 

 m size the third cotton market in the Avorld, with vast 

 warehouses overcrowded with cotton, wharves lined with 

 steamboats, and a fleet of vessels constantly in the offino-. 

 Old inhabitants smile and shake their heads as they recall 



to memory those flush times, and tell with a "has been" 

 air of the past glory of their city. The winter society 

 was charming, the town being always full of foreigners 

 and representative buyers from the principal commercial 

 houses of the world. Money was plentiful and flowed 

 like water, and everybody kept open house and enter- 

 tained on a scale of magnificence that seems fabulous. 

 As an old resident said to me with a mysterious wink, 

 "The agents bought a great deal that was cotton and a 

 great deal that was not cotton." So heavy was the influx 

 of the staple that the vast warehouses, of which we can 

 now but see the ruins, were totally inadequate to house 

 it, and streets and wharves were so encumbered with 

 bales as to make the passing of wagons difficult. Real 

 estate brought great prices, and every one predicted a 

 metropolis of the Gulf. 



Over this "Pompeii" gradually came the rumbling 

 from a Vesuvius. Railroads were built, rail communi- 

 tion established with other seaports; and Apalachicola, 

 thrown on her own resources, died a natural commercial 

 death. The surrounding country was productive of 

 naught save lumber. The cotton receipts fell to nil, and 

 the metropolis of yesterday became the "busted boom" of 

 to-day. Disasters followed; fires and hurricanes came 

 and overflows destroyed many of the warehouses and 

 stores; and to-day the appearance of the business portion 

 of the town is desolate. Great heaps of blackened ruins 

 and crumbling walls attest indeed the former greatness 

 of a trade that now is confined to some half a dozen stores 

 rising above the surrounding ruins. Somehow there is 

 something about the place that always brings to my mind 

 Pompeii; rather a case of the sublime and the ridiculous, 

 I know, but really walking through these deserted, grass- 

 grown streets, and among the heaps of brick covered with 

 a rank growth of years' standing, gives me a feeling of 

 melancholy — it seems like the ghost of a dead civilization. 



But notwithstanding all this Apalachicola is on the up- 

 ward path once more, and though the streets are grass- 

 grown and nearly deserted, and ruined cellars ard foun- 

 dations yawn on every side, the town is steadily pushing 

 ahead, this time on its own resources, which , neglected 

 though they were during the great cotton era, are im- 

 mense and more than sufficient to support a population of 

 ten times that of the present time. I refer to the vast 

 reserves of pine and cypress, and to the products of the 

 sea, here abundant and profitable. There are several 

 very large sawmills in the town and a number of smaller 

 ones about the surrounding country. As a point for this 

 industry Apalachicola possesses singular advantages, 

 being at the mouth of a river whose banks and swamps 

 literally teem with the finest of timber; the stream is 

 always an available means of transport, and when the 

 logs are converted into the lumber of commerce, direct 

 and easy shipment is at hand to all ports of Europe and 

 Central and South America. The anchorage ground for 

 vessels of any size is some fifteen miles away, but the 

 sound leading to this haven is so protected from' the south 

 by the outlying islands of St. George and St. Vincent, 

 that it is passable in the roughest of weather for the tugs 

 and lighters by whose aid all of the cargoes have to be 

 loaded. The sea, however, with its vast oyster beds, 

 myriads of fish and unsurpassed sponging grounds forms 

 the x>rincipal source from which the inhabitants draw 

 theh support; life on the Gulf is indeed rather a dolcefar 

 n ien te sort of existence. There is not much inducement 

 for the unambitious to labor, where one can catch a 

 dinner by a few minutes' fishing or tong up, during the 

 winter months, oysters sufficient to insure life and lazi- 

 ness for the rest of the year, and so the lower classes 

 doze and doze away the long hot summer in peace and 

 idleness. 



There are two oyster canning establishments that are a 

 great boon for the fishermen, as during the cool months 

 they can always find a ready market for their products. 

 Oyster beds literally are on every side, and the quality is 

 said to be unsurpassed for the purpose for which they are 

 used. 



The fishing trade does not amount to much, outside of 

 supplying the local demand, as the facilities for trans- 

 portation are entirely confined to the river boats, a means 

 far too slow for the well-known "rapid" qualities of the 

 fish; though there is, I believe, a small trade in salted 

 fish. The sponge reef lies some fifty miles away, and 

 this is one of the principal industries of the town, almost 

 the entire product from that part of the coast being 

 marketed in Apalachicola, the amount yearly brought 

 in is said to exceed a value of fifty thousand dollars. 



We spent three very pleasant days in Apalachicola, 

 stopping at the Fuller House, a hotel kept by a colored 

 man for the exclusive use of white patrons. It is cer- 

 tainly a model house of the kind, and never have I fared 

 better on a strictly fish and oyster diet than here. We 

 wandered pretty much all over the town. It is an old, 

 old place with an air of peace and quiet about it singu- 

 larly attractive; there is no telegraph, and very meagre 

 mail accommodations almost isolate it from the outside 

 world, and one may here be in perfect peace, undis- 

 turbed by market reports, wars or rumors of wars; 

 nothing more exciting ever occurs than the arrival or 

 departure of a fishing smack. 



The houses are most of them old and of a fashion now 

 out of date, but are all set in the midst of flower gardens 

 that would be the envy of any millionaire. Never have 

 I seen more beautiful vegetation than there is here; not 

 the stunted, pruned and pampered growth we are accus- 

 tomed to, but great vigorous trees of roses, which cover 

 an entire wall with their blossom-decked vines. The 

 population is very mixed, the fishing class being com- 

 posed largely of the Dagoes, stout, swarthy young fel- 

 lows who, notwithstanding their years of residence in 

 prosaic America, yet preserve much of their native Italian 

 grace and picturesqueness. 



The advent of the opera company caused quite a stir. 

 A barn had been fixed up for the performance, and on 

 the first night the sale of seats far exceeded the antici- 

 pations of the manager; in fact, I think that a list taken 

 of the audience would have been a fairly correct census 

 of the place. The crowd was very arnusing, and there 

 was evidently a large portion of it which beheld a play 

 for the first time. Everybody was dressed in their best 

 store clothes, Avith shoes painfully blacked and heads of 

 hair plastered to the lustre of looking glasses, shirts with 

 excruciatingly high collars of a pre-adamite style ap- 

 peared to an alarming extent; stout, red-faced fish-wives, 

 more used to the oyster knife than the parquet, showed 

 off toilets not usually seen in the Casino of New York. 

 Everybody came the first night to witness the perform- 



