166 
at the old spot east of Cape Sable. Poor 
forlorn country! Though the soil is suit- 
able for the raising of tropical fruits, the 
lack of fresh water and the terrible insect 
scourge makes it simply torture to stay 
there. Clouds of mosquitoes give their 
victim not a moment’s peace. One must 
wear thick clothes, and either don gloves 
and a screen hat or fight all the time. In 
camp must be maintained a_ constant 
blinding smudge of dead wood of the 
black mangrove, which “skeets”’ and men 
In the Cape Sable Wilderness 
mule can support life in such a country, 
and that hardy beast only by being kept 
in a screened stable and bundled up in 
burlap when taken out to work. 
One of my most interesting and rough- 
est excursions was to a lake six miles away, 
or rather to its vicinity. When we neared 
the edge of the lake, which was more 
properly a sort of everglade morass, and 
tried to get into the swampy woods where 
the birds were flying into the rookery, 
troubles began, compared with which the 
The Last Lingering White Pelicans. 
alike detest. Photography under these 
circumstances is comparable to the Span- 
ish Inquisition. Settlers who pretend to 
any comfort at all screen their houses and 
keep outside the door a brush of palmetto 
leaves with which every visitor must beat 
off the stinging swarm before dodging 
within. Other settlers keep the smudge- 
pot going and live in smoke. ‘There are 
also swarms of a terrible great fly, an inch 
and a quarter in length, whose bite is like 
a knife-thrust, with corresponding flow of 
blood. No domestic animal except the 
clouds of “skeets’? were as nothing. 
Rivers of soft treacle-like mud proved ab- 
solutely impassable. Finally we got 
across a wide ditch, and encountered 
tract of impenetrable dead saw-grass. A 
match was applied, and, after the roaring 
cauldron of flame had passed, we went on. 
Then we encountered a tropical jung 
a solid mass of roots, vines, scrub Dall chlo 
and the like. The guide went forward 
with his caseknife, and cut openings, 
through which we crawled. After half 
an hour of this came a saw-grass bog quar- 
