

AvuG. 24, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
289 


MR. BEVAN’S 
COTTAGE, 
like some giant it dipped its great arm with its 
shovel down deep in the soft earth, and bring- 
ing up its load of mud piled it on the shore, 
making a waterway sixty feet wide and between 
five and six feet deep, while its mate was com- 
ing up to meet it from the south; and so year 
after year they toiled on, coming nearer and 
nearer, until when less than a mile apart, one 
dredge caught fire and was entirely destroyed 
and left the other to finish the work alone. Now 
it is done and we are reaping the reward of 
long and arduous labor. The banks of all that 
part of the which have been completed 
for a few with a 
varied vegetation which gives them beauty and 
canal 
years, are already covered 
picturesqueness. 
The land iying along this northern portion is 
covered with a thick growth of trees, oak, pine, 
cedar and cabbage palmetto. All this 
wood are plenty of camping places where it is 
From 
along 
pleasant to stop at any time of the year. 
one of these camping places, at which I have 
stopped, a road leads over to the beach where, 
during the Civil War, the people evaporated the 
water of the sea to obtain their salt, and one of 
the old kettles yet remains, a silent reminder 
of the straits of the people in that time of strife. 
As these woods are free of undergrowth they 
are safe as well as pleasant to wander in, and 
one spending day after day among them either 
for sport or pleasure, and never coming across 
a rattler, will come to consider the tales told 
of snakes in Florida as for the most part myth- 
ical, as indeed they are. 
Westward a 
will come across the ruins of St. Joseph, with 
the chimney stack of its sugar mill yet standing, 
short -way from this point you 
and the rusty machinery still in place, for here 
the industry flourished for a while and was de- 
stroyed during the Indian wars. In digging the 
canal the line of least resistance was followed, 
which was the marsh lying along the headwaters 
of the deviates from a 
the effect of 
Matanzas, and so it 
straight line often enough to give 
a winding stream. As it approaches the coquina 
ridge, its course lies not very far from the line 
of sand dunes, marking the ocean barrier, and 
from thence it is at no time far from the sea. 
This coquina ridge, taking its name from its 
peculiar formation, and extending all along the 
coast, divides the waters flowing into the Matan- 
flowing into Smith Creek, the 
When this was finally cut 
zas from those 
head of the Halifax. 
through the two streams were one, and the in- 
side waterway from St. Augustine to Miami and 
beyond was complete. 
The canal from this point runs for 
some dis- 
tance through a marsh and then several miles 
palmetto whose 
attention by its 
These 
edge of a swamp 
your 
along the 
attracts 
a straight line. 
border being SO 
nearly great thickets of 
the cabbage palmetto 
border and give the air of tropical vegetation 
form a most picturesque 
which you do not get in the northern part of 
the State. 
Reaching Dead Lake the canal skirts its west- 
This 
at all times in fish, and the dredge 
ern border. lake in winter abounds in 
ducks, and 
has brought to the surface several sunken canoes, 
dugouts of cypress, telling of Indian occupation 
The eastern border 
and the 
forgotten time. 
from the beach 
in the long 
of the lake is not far 
camper can fish for bass in the surf or for any 
of the very. numerous varieties of fish that abound 
in the inland waters. The course of the canal 
runs along the borders of two other lakes and 
then enters Smith Creek, which it widens and 
straightens. 
Here is shown one of those curious things in 
This canal 
was begun twenty years ago and then abandoned 
Now the east bank, thrown up 
natural history. lower end of the 
for many years. 
by the dredge so many years ago, is covered by 
a growth of cedar grown from the seeds brought 
no other cedar in the 
by the birds, as there is 

MR. BEVAN AND A 40-POUND 
44-INCH 
immediate neighborhood, and the trees are al- 
ready quite well grown. 
The 
head of the Halifax and a most picturesque view 
waterway now suddenly widens into the 
breaks upon you. The bordering forests and the 
mouth of the Tomaka River are in the distance, 
while on the left at the barrier is shown the life 
saving station, and the residences of the pioneers 
orange trees. 
of this region showing amid the 
Ormond and Ormond-by-the-Sea, lying at the 
former head of navigation, but now at the com- 
pletion of the canal, lying in the middle of its 
course, are two thriving villages in Florida, but 
dignified as cities with mayors and councils, etc 
Here the traveler by the canal can, if he likes, 
come to anchor, fire his evening gun, and go on 
desirous, or re- 
This ability 
wishes is a 
shore for the night if he is so 
plenishing his stores, stay on board. 
to do as nearly as possible as one 
great part of the charm of boat life along this 
waterway. 
Daytona, settled by thrifty citizens from Ohio, 
who had rare sense to leave the beautiful forest 
standing, and laying out the streets one hun- 
dred feet wide through the forest, leaving the 
greater part of the fine old oaks and palmetto 
standing, have laid out their city as in a wooded 
park and have insured their being kept by for- 
bidding the cutting of any tree without the con- 
sent of the city council. So Daytona is a city 
in the woods or rather in a park. Its founders 
were wise in making the most of their oppor- 

ONE 
OF THE CAMPSITES IN THE WOODS 
ALONG THE CANAL, 

