THE CAPE SABLE REGION OF FLORIDA 



living- trees. Although there was little showy terrestrial 

 vegetation, many of the air-plants were conspicuously 

 beautiful. The butterfly-orchid {Cyrtopodium puncta- 

 tum) was in full bloom. Most interesting was the large 

 columnar cactus (Hcuirrisia) , with its erect, reclining, or 

 climbing, hawser-like stems and branches, and large white 

 flowers. 



Once within the mangroves our course, for a distance 

 of about six miles, lay through seven creeks and seven 

 lakes. These were completely hidden one from another, 

 and each concealed from the traveler until he was actu- 

 ally upon them. The creeks were natural channels of 

 deep water ; but their courses were tortuous and progress 

 along them was much impeded by snags, beneath, on 

 either side, and overhead. For a great part of the dis- 

 tance, therefore, we had either to lie down in the boats 

 in order to save our heads or to get out and pull the 

 boats over snags. But the lakes were beautiful, shallow, 

 irregular bodies of crystal-clear salt-water. Their soft 

 mud bottoms were almost completely covered with the 

 most matted masses of sea-weeds I had ever seen. This 

 " Brussels-carpet ''-like growth of seaweeds came to 

 within about six inches of the surface of the water and 

 was SO' dense as to support a man walking. 



Finally Cuthbert Lake was reached. This was a fine 

 body of water completely surrounded by banks of beau- 

 tiful green mangroves. There was some comparatively 

 high land about the lake and there in the dense hammock 

 we came upon one object of our incursion, namely, the 

 saw-cabbage palm (Paurotis IVrightii) , the least known 

 and most distinctive of the palms of the eastern United 



