430 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 20, 1888. 



NOTES ON WESTERN FLORIDA. 



VII, — IN THE SWAMPS. 

 [Continued from pane 406.] 



NORTH of Apalachicola extends for fifty miles a vast 

 wilderness of morass and forest, inaccessible save 

 for the many waterways, and uninhabited except by a 

 race of hardy lumbermen who hew out the mighty tim- 

 bers to supply the sawmills at the mouth of the Apala- 

 chee River. 



The land adjacent to the many streams, and in some 

 cases extending back for miles, is subject to overflow, 

 and for six months of the year the water stands several 

 feet deep over great areas, while during the dry season 

 these stretches become pestilential swamps, with a cli- 

 mate almost as deadly as that of the Congo or the Niger. 

 There are also many so-called lakes, really sloughs filled 

 with the backwater from rivers. They are sluggish, 

 semi-stagnant pools, sometimes of considerable size and 

 generally of great depth. More gloomy, forbidding-look- 

 ing places than these sombre sheets of inky water it 

 would be hard to imagine. Their unruffled surfaces are 

 seldom cut by the prow of a logman's bateau, and save 

 for leaping fish or the occasional splashing of an alliga- 

 tor, nothing ever disturbs a silence that is almost horrible 

 in its intensity. 



In the swamps and on the borders of these lakes grow 

 the most magnificent cypress tress in the world, and if 

 one would see the logman at home, he must tread his 

 way along the numerous waterways, through morass and 

 pool, to where that truly amphibious man, often stand- 

 ing knee-deep in the marsh, works day after day at his 

 health-destroying task. 



Back from the swamps are stretches of higher, sandy 

 land, on which is found the pine timber that has made 

 Florida so famous as a lumber country. They are melan- 

 choly-looking, these sun-dried "barrens," with their end- 

 less vistas of tall pines shooting up as straight as columns, 

 and so regularly placed that it seems as if they must have 

 been planted by the hand of man instead of by nature: 

 but they comprise about all of the habitable land of that 

 portion of Florida, and though not so fertile as much of 

 the country in the eastern part of the State, the soil 

 yields well when properly cultivated. A growth of wire 

 grass affords nourishment for cattle, and the numerous 

 jungles of titi bush are the resort of deer. 



Strange as it may seem, water is very scarce in many 

 parts of the pine barrens, the streams that flow from 

 swamp to swamp are so sluggish during the dry season 

 that they are almost unfit to drink. Roads are few and 

 far between, the natives preferring to rely upon the water- 

 ways as a means of travel; and the hunter or explorer, in 

 going away from the beaten tracks, is too often con- 

 fronted by a narrow strip of 6wamp, sometimes only a 

 few yards across, but as impassable with its treacherous 

 ooze as any canon of the West, and necessitating long 

 detours in order to reach comparatively near points. But 

 the waterways are everywhere, navigable and deep 

 enough to float a navy. They twist and turn to all points 

 of the compass, in places doubling upon themselves until 

 only a few yards of dry land intervenes between points 

 miles distant if the course of the current were followed. 

 In such spots the energetic logmen have in many cases 

 cut canals to establish more direct communication with 

 the main streams and lessen the distance that they have 

 to float their rafts. The true Floridian, who never walks 

 when he can ride, never rides when he can canal, but 

 takes advantage of this wonderful system of water courses 

 and does most of his traveling by boat. 



There are a few regular settlers who live in the barrens; 

 true types of the cracker species, with their tall gaunt- 

 forms and yellow faces: they dwell, for the most part, in 

 miserable log cabins of only one room, and cultivate after 

 a fashion a patch of corn or vegetable; but hunting and 

 fishing are the principal occupations, and where the 

 woods are so full of game and the streams swarm with 

 fish there is not much need for extensive work in order 

 to obtain a living. So they exist, and happily enough, I 

 dare say, in lazy contentment and blissful ignorance of 

 the rest of the world. Occasionally they will hew down 

 a few pine logs to sell to the mills at Apalachicola, with 

 the proceeds of which they buy such necessaries of life 

 as are not supplied to them by nature. Some of the Jay 

 Goulds among them own a few heads of stunted cattle, 

 which find pasturage on the coarso grass; and the 

 amounts of honey and wax sold in town during the last 

 year shows that they are turning their attention to bee- 

 farming. 



Eighteen miles above the Gulf , three rivers, called the 

 Three Brothers, flow into the Apalachee; and adjacent 

 to these is one of the finest timber countries to be found 

 in all Florida. Cypresses and pines are abundant and 

 easily gotton at, owing to the winding nature of the 

 streams, and the many little creeks that flow into the 

 main rivers each opens a territory of its own, and 

 affords excellent floating facilities for the rafts. The 

 whole of the vast swamp through which the Three 

 Brothers wind their ways is one perfect network of navi- 

 gable water courses. It is from this region that a large 

 portion of the log supply of the Apalachicola sawmills is 

 derived, and though lumbering has been going on there 

 for many years, no serious decrease is noticeable in the 

 almost inexhaustible resources of that vast wilderness. 



One March, Bondclipper, Rusticus and I found ourselves 

 in Apalachicola, about to set out on our usual spring- 

 hunt. We had cruised down the coast, hunted the great 

 western wilderness, and explored, as we loved to term it, 

 many of the streams to the eastward; so now, longing for 

 new worlds to conquer, our attention was turned to the 

 country north, through which we had partly sped, via 

 steamboat, on the trip down river. The inaccessibility of 

 the region alone caused us some apprehension, and how 

 to reach, in even moderate comfort, those great morasses 

 was a question not easily solved. 



After several days in town, during which time we suc- 

 cessively rejected sailboats as too uncertain on account of 

 the fatful breezes of forest-inclosed streams, canoes as 

 bemg rather cramped and uncomfortable, horses and 

 wagons as not available vehicles by which to reach cer- 

 tain sections, and ox carts on account of our horror of the 

 profanity invariable and necessary among the drivers we 

 anally discovered just the thing in a forty-foot steam 

 launch, a neat little craft with a light roof to keep off the 



sun and rain, besides being otherwise nicely arranged for 

 comfort. So we at once chartered the Ellen, and one 

 morning, having stowed all baggage the ni^ht before, we 

 boarded our craft, blew the shrill little whistle defiantly 

 to let the still sleeping town know of our start, and 

 steamed out from the wharf into the main river on a voy- 

 age of hunting and general exploration. We carried a 

 crew of two souls, the captain and Joe, the latter filling 

 the place of engineer and fireman in one. 



For an hour we steamed steadily up stream, between 

 low marshy banks covered with long grass, until Old 

 Woman's Bluff, six miles above town, was reached, where 

 we stopped to take on wood. It is hard to understand 

 why this spot was named a bluff; the ground does not 

 rise more than a very few feet above the river, and has 

 not the least of the appearance indicated by its name; 

 but it seems to be the custom to call any place not actually 

 a swamp, or that rises level with low water, either a bluff 

 or a cliff, high ground probably being so scarce that the 

 natives wish to honor it when it does appear by high- 

 sounding names. 



At the time of our visit an Englishman had just com- 

 pleted an undertaking that was expected to revolutionize 

 the lumber business. It was a saw mill constructed upon 

 the hull of a steamboat, for the pm-pose of running up 

 rivers, wherever the supply of logs was best, the intention 

 being to do away with the long floats. But I have since 

 understood that it did not prove a success, and a few 

 months after our visit, the entire plant was destroyed by 

 fire, entailing a severe loss upon the enterprising owner. 



A short distance above the bluff we left the main river 

 and entered the equally broad but less swift waters of the 

 tributary streams. At the junction of the two, a rude 

 box nailed to the trunk of a tree attracted our attention. 

 It seems that some years ago, a small schooner came into 

 Apalachicola from certain infected ports, against which 

 a rigid quarantine had been established by the town 

 authorities. The crew were forbidden to enter, but very 

 f oolishly one morning they ran past the town, in spite of 

 the protests of the health officers, and under a heavy fire 

 from the Apalachicola people. They ascended the river 

 to this junction, and entering the lesser stream, stayed 

 out their quarantine period in safety. This box, with the 

 words "TJ. S. mail," was put up by them to receive letters 

 and supplies of food. 



As we proceeded alligators became very numerous, 

 lying close to the marshy banks or indolently sunning 

 themselves on the mud flats. When one kills his first 

 alligator he is all enthusiasm, nothing will do but that he 

 must secure the body of his game and hack out with in- 

 finite labor some of the teeth as trophies; the nasty wet 

 form of the saurian is dragged aboard, to the amazement 

 of old timers, who watch the gloating ecstacy with which 

 the slayer examines his prize, with much the same feel- 

 ings an old hound must have when regarding the first 

 efforts of a promising pup. When, after slaying a dozen 

 or so, the novice finds out what useless things alligators 

 are, he pots the beasts with unconcern and does not deem 

 it necessary to interrupt the pleasure of shooting with the 

 labor of securing the game. 



A mile above the mam river the banks become very 

 heavily wooded, and we steamed between two high waifs 

 of green foliage that shut out the view of the surround- 

 ing country. Four miles of this brought us to Lake 

 Wimlico, which, though generally very shallow, is a con- 

 siderable body of water and quite like an inland sea. 

 At the time of our visit a gale of wind raised the white 

 caps in a very angry manner, tossing the frail launch 

 about in a most disagreeable way, and causing Rusticus, 

 who is the worst of sailors, to have serious apprehensions 

 of a repetition of some seasick experiences of the year 

 before. He managed to recover sufficiently, however, 

 at the sight of a flock of summer ducks to grab his gun 

 and make a most excellent right and left as they flew 

 over, dropping two of their number into the lake. These 

 it was no easy matter to pick up, with the sea threaten- 

 ing every moment to wash over us, and the feat was 

 accomplished not without some danger. Steam launches 

 are very safe craft in still water, but when waves begin 

 to run they are not at all as certain of remaining right 

 side up as they should be, the heavy boilers and awkward 

 covers making them rather top-heavy. 



All were pretty well drenched with flying spray by the 

 time the five miles of stormy water had been crossed, and 

 it was with relief that we we ran into the calm under lee 

 of the woods. About noon we entered a beautiful little 

 stream named Depot Creek; it was quite narrow, but of 

 good depth, the black waters falling a sheer twenty feet 

 from under the cypresses. How lovely these little Florida 

 streams are; they flow on between great forests of mag- 

 nolias and a thousand beautiful trees that arch till they 

 almost meet overhead; each stretch of the silent waters 

 is just like the last, the very monotony is enchanting, 

 and though one always looks for something new, no dis- 

 appointment is felt that the expectation is not realized. 



A short distance up the creek a stop was made at an 

 apiary to take a pair of hounds aboard, and we went ashore 

 to see something of this industry that is rapidly attaining 

 large proportions in that portion of Florida, The bee 

 hives, some hundred in number, were situated upon a 

 shell mound that rose out of the swamp and was the only 

 elevated spot for miles around. A shaky walk, consist- 

 ing of single planks resting on stakes, spanned the 100yds. 

 of slimy ooze that separated the bank of the creek from 

 the bit of terra flrma, and over this somewhat risky prom- 

 enade we were obliged to cross with antics strongly sug- 

 gestive of tight-rope walkers. The mound itself "was the 

 most interesting part of the place, being composed 

 entirely of marine shells and rising solitary and alone. 

 10ft. above the surrounding level. These remains of an 

 ancient race are numerous all down the Gulf coast. I 

 have examined quite a number of them, but never dis- 

 covered that their outlines bore resemblance to anything 

 in particular, as is the case with similar remains in Ohio 

 and the West. They generally, however, contain relics 

 in the shape of rude pieces of pottery, scrapers or arrow- 

 heads, and not infrequently hitman bones. We spent an 

 hour searching for curios, but did not find anything of 

 special note. The apiary was attended to by an overseer 

 who looked after the place, keeping wild animals from 

 committing depredations, and taking honey from the 

 boxes at the proper time. 



The bees are either caught during swarming time by 

 cutting down trees that contain them, or they may be 

 purchased from other established apiaries. Twice a year 

 is as often as hives should be robbed, in order to attain 

 ! the best results and insure a steady output, The busi- 



ness is a growing one, requiring very little capital, and 

 yielding, with proper management, considerable profit. 



Bears are about the only enemy against which the 

 bee man has to contend, for brain, though naturally of a 

 most retiring dispositon, has a great weakness for honey. 

 When he discovers a fine lot of hives, his usual caution 

 seems to desert him and he attacks the toothsome mor- 

 sels witli the most utter disregard of consequences. Not 

 content with one feast, he will return night after night, 

 until the honey is all gone or a well-directed bullet from 

 an ambushed hunter settles forever his sweet career, A 

 few nights before our visit, the overseer had shot; a great 

 black monster that had been making sad havoc for some 

 time past, and the signs of whose ravages were shown to 

 us in the broken hives. It was here that we first tasted 

 metheglin. The brand found here is made simply of 

 honey and water, shaken up together and left to fer- 

 ment. As a drink, it is far from bad, having an acidity 

 that is very refreshing when one is hot and tired. So 

 great an impression did its charms make upon our palates 

 that a keg was taken on board for future reference dur- 

 ing the hunt. 



We steamed six or eight miles up creek from the 

 apiary and at about sundown camped in a pretty little 

 glade of the forest, where dry ground came down to the 

 water's edge and afforded a good landing. In a very 

 short time the A tent was stretched between two sap- 

 lings, and enough wood piled up near by to last until 

 morning. Each one was his own cook that night, for 

 when a party first starts out it requires some time to get 

 the hang of things, and to know where all the delicacies 

 and conveniences are stowed; but we all managed to 

 get along well enough that night with simply bread, 

 meat and coffee. 



What a difference there is between camp bacon and 

 bacon cooked in the legitimate way and served upon a 

 white plate! Never fry when you are in camp. Stick 

 the meat, whatever it is, upon a green branch and broil 

 it by holding directly in the blaze of the fire. No matter 

 if it frequently does fall off the improved fork into the 

 ashes — ashes are clean, and you can wipe them away 

 just before eating. To be sure the meat may be burnt in 

 some places and perhaps a trifle underdone in others, but 

 you will never know the difference, and will vote it the 

 most delicious of morsels, that is if you are a true sports- 

 man—and hungry. 



The night was chilly and the circle around the camp- 

 fire was very contracted, each one pressing as close to 

 the cheerful flames as possible. It is a strange fact, and 

 one that I have often remarked, that hounds" will not lie 

 within the light of a camp-fire; no matter how cold the 

 night may be, they prefer to curl up a score of yards away 

 and face the chill wind with no other covering than their 

 own hides. The two that we brought from the apiai y were 

 no exception to this rule, but lay behind the tent growl- 

 ing and fighting over their suppers in the way that 

 hounds always have done and always will do in spite of 

 training to the contrary. They were great lean, black 

 and tan fellows, whose long drooping ears were ragged 

 and seamed with the marks of many a contest with wild 

 cat or coon. If there is one thing that stirs the sluggish 

 blood of the cracker it is a chase, and great pride is taken 

 in the hounds, many of which are bred with a care and 

 selection worthy of the best kennels in the land. 



The country in which we camped that night was once 

 quite thickly populated, and many years before the war 

 was crossed by a railroad that extended between the town 

 of Iola, on the Apalachee River, and St. Joseph, a sea 

 port that faced the Gulf twenty miles west of Apalachi- 

 cola. But the track, for some reason, was torn up ages 

 ago, and the country has been on the decline for the last 

 twenty years. Iola now consists of only four or five 

 houses, w hile St. Joseph, once a place of several thousand 

 inhabitants, was cleaned out by a yellow fever epidemic, 

 and has completely disappeared, leaving not one trace be- 

 hind, the very houses having been pulled down and trans- 

 ported to Apalachicola. It is hard to realize that this 

 desolate land was once crossed by a railroad, and it is 

 somewhat startling in this energetic Union of ours to come 

 upon a railway embankment in the midst of the forest, 

 upon which pine trees with trunks the size of a man's 

 body have grown since its disuse. Depot Creek was 

 named from the fact of its being crossed by this railroad, 

 and a depot once stood upon its now lonely shores. 



The next morning all bands were up by daybreak, and 

 before sunrise we had started out on a deer hunt. Bond- 

 clipper and the Captain decided to try still -hunting, so 

 they took one direction, while Rusticus, Joe and I with 

 the two hounds took another; we were all armed with 

 rifles except Rusticus, who disdained to lay down his 

 Scott shotgun, "long range or no long range." The deer 

 in that part of Florida, except when feeding early in the 

 morning or late in the afternoon, seek the coverts of the 

 numerous small titi jungles, and when therein concealed 

 are very difficult to dislodge, as often they will not move 

 though one passes within a few yards, while owing to 

 the density of the undergrowth they are well nigh in- 

 visible. We pursued the usual plan, i. e,, when we came 

 to one of these thickets we would separate, two going 

 on one side and one on the other; the dogs were then put 

 into the swamp, while we kept up with them on the out- 

 side, having our guns ready for any game that might 

 break out. The coverts are generally about half a mile 

 long, but seldom over 200yds. wide, so that we were 

 always within hail of each other, and usually met with 

 the utmost regularity when the circuit was com: leted; 

 then the dogs would be called out and the performance 

 repeated at the next titi. In this way we hunted all the 

 morning without seeing a single deer. Tracks were 

 wonderfully abundant, but the game either managed to 

 get out of the jungles ahead of us, or lay so closely con- 

 cealed as to baffle the noses of our dogs. Walking was 

 very bad on account of the growth of Spanish bayonet 

 that everywhere covered the ground, making sad havoc 

 with our unprotected legs, and by noon we found our- 

 selves some ten miles from camp, thoroughly tired out 

 and just a little disgusted. 



"Dog gone deer hunting, anyway," said Rusticus, 

 "give me partridge shooting, every time; this thing of 

 tramping about all day and never having a chance to 

 hear the sound of your own gun don't pay. I had rather 

 kill birds over a good dog than hunt deer all day, espec- 

 ially when you never see so much as a rabbit. Blamed 

 if I don't believe that some one has gone ahead making 

 all these tracks with an old deer's foot, just to encourage 

 us," he added, as we came to a place where the number 

 of hoof marks indicated that quite a herd of deer had 



