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OF the people of the States
that I have now passed, I best like the Georgians. They have charming
manners, and their dwellings are mostly larger and better than those of
adjacent States. However costly or ornamental their homes or their manners,
they do not, like those of the New Englander, appear as the fruits of
intense and painful sacrifice and training, but are entirely divested of
artificial weights and measures, and seem to pervade and twine about their
characters as spontaneous growths with the durability and charm of living
nature.
In particular, Georgians,
even the commonest, have a most charmingly cordial way of saying to
strangers, as they proceed on their journey, "I wish you well, sir." The
negroes of Georgia, too, are extremely mannerly and polite, and appear
always to be delighted to find opportunity for obliging anybody.
Athens contains many
beautiful residences. I never before saw so much about a home that was so
evidently done for beauty only, although this is by no means a universal
characteristic of Georgian homes. Nearly all well-to-do farmers' families in
Georgia and Tennessee spin and weave their own cloth. This work is almost
all done by the mothers and daughters and consumes much of their time.
The traces of war are
apparent not only on the broken fields, burnt fences, mills, and woods
ruthlessly slaughtered, but also on the countenances of the people. A few
years after a forest has been burned another generation of bright and happy
trees arises, in purest, freshest vigor; only the old trees, wholly or half
dead, bear marks of the calamity. So with the people of this war-field.
Happy, unscarred, and unclouded youth is growing up around the aged,
half-consumed, and fallen parents, who bear in sad measure the ineffaceable
marks of the farthest-reaching and most infernal of all civilized
calamities.
Since the commencement of my
floral pilgrimage I have seen much that is not only new, but altogether
unallied, unacquainted with the plants of my former life. I have seen
magnolias, tupelo, live-oak, Kentucky oak, tillandsia, long-leafed pine,
palmetto, schrankia, and whole forests of strange trees and vine-tied
thickets of blooming shrubs; whole meadowfuls of magnificent bamboo and
lakefuls of lilies, all new to me; yet I still press eagerly on to Florida
as the special home of the tropical plants I am looking for, and I feel sure
I shall not be disappointed.
The same day on which the
money arrived I took passage on the steamship Sylvan Shore for Fernandina,
Florida. The daylight part of this sail along the coast of Florida was full
of novelty, and by association awakened memories of my Scottish days at
Dunbar on the Firth of Forth.
On board I had civilized
conversation with a Southern planter on topics that are found floating in
the mind of every white man down here who has a single thought. I also met a
brother Scotchman, who was especially interesting and had some ideas outside
of Southern politics. Altogether my half-day and night on board the steamer
were pleasant, and carried me past a very sickly, entangled, overflowed, and
unwalkable piece of forest.
It is pretty well known that
a short geological time ago the ocean covered the sandy level margin,
extending from the foot of the Alleghanies to the present coast-line, and in
receding left many basins for lakes and swamps. The land is still
encroaching on the sea, and it does so not evenly, in a regular line, but in
fringing lagoons and inlets and dotlike coral islands.
It is on the coast strip of
isles and peninsulas that sea-island cotton is grown. Some of these small
islands are afloat, anchored only by the roots of mangroves and rushes. For
a few hours our steamer sailed in the open sea, exposed to its waves, but
most of the time she threaded her way among the lagoons, the home of
alligators and countless ducks and waders.
October 15. To-day, at last,
I reached Florida, the so-called "Land of Flowers," that I had so long
waited for, wondering if after all my longings and prayers would be in vain,
and I should die without a glimpse of the flowery Canaan. But here it is, at
the distance of a few yards! — a flat, watery, reedy coast, with clumps of
mangrove and forests of moss-dressed, strange trees appearing low in the
distance. The steamer finds her way among the reedy islands like a duck, and
I step on a rickety wharf. A few steps more take me to a rickety town,
Fernandina. I discover a baker, buy some bread, and without asking a single
question, make for the shady, gloomy groves.
In visiting Florida in
dreams, of either day or night, I always came suddenly on a close forest of
trees, every one in flower, and bent down and entangled to network by
luxuriant, bright-blooming vines, and over all a flood of bright sunlight.
But such was not the gate by which I entered the promised land, Salt
marshes, belonging more to the sea than to the land; with groves here and
there, green and unflowered, sunk to the shoulders in sedges and rushes;
with trees farther back, ill defined in their boundary, and instead of
rising in hilly waves and swellings, stretching inland in low water-like
levels.
We were all discharged by the
captain of the steamer without breakfast, and, after meeting and examining
the new plants that crowded about me, I threw down my press and little bag
beneath a thicket, where there was a dry spot on some broken heaps of grass
and roots, something like a deserted muskrat house, and applied myself to my
bread breakfast. Everything in earth and sky had an impression of
strangeness; not a mark of friendly recognition, not a breath, not a spirit
whisper of sympathy came from anything about me, and of course I was lonely.
I lay on my elbow eating my bread, gazing, and listening to the profound
strangeness.
While thus engaged I was
startled from these gatherings of melancholy by a rustling sound in the
rushes behind me. Had my mind been in health, and my body not starved, I
should only have turned calmly to the noise. But in this half-starved,
unfriended condition I could have no healthy thought, and I at once believed
that the sound came from an alligator. I fancied I could feel the stroke of
his long notched tail, and could see his big jaws and rows of teeth, closing
with a springy snap on me, as I had seen in pictures.
Well, I don't know the exact
measure of my fright either in time or pain, but when I did come to a
knowledge of the truth, my man-eating alligator became a tall white crane,
handsome as a minister from spirit land — "only that." I was ashamed and
tried to excuse myself on account of Bonaventure anxiety and hunger.
Florida is so watery and
vine-tied that pathless wanderings are not easily possible in any direction.
I started to cross the State by a gap hewn for the locomotive, walking
sometimes between the rails, stepping from tie to tie, or walking on the
strip of sand at the sides, gazing into the mysterious forest, Nature's own.
It is impossible to write the dimmest picture of plant grandeur so
redundant, unfathomable.
Short was the measure of my
walk to-day. A new, cavelike grass, or big lily, or gorgeous flower
belonging to tree or vine, would catch my attention, and I would throw down
my bag and press and splash through the coffee-brown water for specimens.
Frequently I sank deeper and deeper until compelled to turn back and make
the attempt in another and still another place. Oftentimes I was tangled in
a labyrinth of armed vines like a fly in a spider-web. At all times, whether
wading or climbing a tree for specimens of fruit, I was overwhelmed with the
vastness and unapproachableness of the great guarded sea of sunny plants.
Magnolia grandiflora I had
seen in Georgia; but its home, its better land, is here. Its large
dark-green leaves, glossy bright above and rusty brown beneath, gleam and
mirror the sunbeams most gloriously among countless flower-heaps of the
climbing, smothering vines. It is bright also in fruit and more tropical in
form and expression than the orange. It speaks itself a prince among its
fellows.
Occasionally I came to a
little strip of open sand, planted with pine (Pinus palustris or Cubensis).
Even these spots were mostly wet, though lighted with free sunshine, and
adorned with purple liatris, and orange-colored Osmunda cinnamomea. But the
grandest discovery of this great wild day was the palmetto.
I was meeting so many strange
plants that I was much excited, making many stops to get specimens. But I
could not force my way far through the swampy forest, although so tempting
and full of promise. Regardless of water snakes or insects, I endeavored
repeatedly to force a way through the tough vine-tangles, but seldom
succeeded in getting farther than a few hundred yards.
It was while feeling sad to
think that I was only walking on the edge of the vast wood, that I caught
sight of the first palmetto in a grassy place, standing almost alone. A few
magnolias were near it, and bald cypresses, but it was not shaded by them.
They tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man
is immortal, etc.; but this, I think, is something that we know very nearly
nothing about. Anyhow, this palm was indescribably impressive and told me
grander things than I ever got from human priest.
This vegetable has a plain
gray shaft, round as a broom-handle, and a crown of varnished channeled
leaves. It is a plainer plant than the humblest of Wisconsin oaks; but,
whether rocking and rustling in the wind or poised thoughtful and calm in
the sunshine, it has a power of expression not excelled by any plant high or
low that I have met in my whole walk thus far.
This, my first specimen, was
not very tall, only about twenty-five feet high, with fifteen or twenty
leaves, arching equally and evenly all around. Each leaf was about ten feet
in length, the blade four feet, the stalk six. The leaves are channeled like
half-open clams and are highly polished, so that they reflect the sunlight
like glass. The undeveloped leaves on the top stand erect, closely folded,
all together forming an oval crown over which the tropic light is poured and
reflected from its slanting mirrors in sparks and splinters and long-rayed
stars.
I am now in the hot gardens
of the sun, where the palm meets the pine, longed and prayed for and often
visited in dreams, and, though lonely to-night amid this multitude of
strangers, strange plants, strange winds blowing gently, whispering, cooing,
in a language I never learned, and strange birds also, everything solid or
spiritual full of influences that I never before felt, yet I thank the Lord
with all my heart for his goodness in granting me admission to this
magnificent realm.
October 16. Last evening when
I was in the trackless woods, the great mysterious night becoming more
mysterious in the thickening darkness, I gave up hope of finding food or a
house bed, and searched only for a dry spot on which to sleep safely hidden
from wild, runaway negroes. I walked rapidly for hours in the wet, level
woods, but not a foot of dry ground could I find. Hollow-voiced owls were
calling without intermission. All manner of night sounds came from strange
insects and beasts, one by one, or crowded together. All had a home but me.
Jacob on the dry plains of Padan-aram, with a stone pillow, must have been
comparatively happy.
When I came to an open place
where pines grew it was about ten o'clock, and I thought that now at last I
would find dry ground. But even the sandy barren was wet, and I had to grope
in the dark a long time, feeling the ground with my hands when my feet
ceased to plash, before I at last discovered a little hillock dry enough to
lie down on. I ate a piece of bread that I fortunately had in my bag, drank
some of the brown water about my precious hillock, and lay down. The
noisiest of the unseen witnesses around me were the owls, who pronounced
their gloomy speeches with profound emphasis, but did not prevent the coming
of sleep to heal weariness.
In the morning I was cold and
wet with dew, and I set out breakfastless. Flowers and beauty I had in
abundance, but no bread. A serious matter is this bread which perishes, and,
could it be dispensed with, I doubt if civilization would ever see me again.
I walked briskly, watching for a house, as well as the grand assemblies of
novel plants.
Near the middle of the
forenoon I came to a shanty where a party of loggers were getting out long
pines for ship spars. They were the wildest of all the white savages I have
met. The long-haired ex-guerrillas of the mountains of Tennessee and North
Carolina are uncivilized fellows; but for downright barbarism these Florida
loggers excel. Nevertheless, they gave me a portion of their yellow pork and
hominy without either apparent hospitality or a grudge, and I was glad to
escape to the forest again.
A few hours later I dined
with three men and three dogs. I was viciously attacked by the latter, who
undertook to undress me with their teeth. I was nearly dragged down
backward, but escaped unbitten. Liver pie, mixed with sweet potatoes and fat
duff, was set before me, and after I had finished a moderate portion, one of
the men, turning to his companion, remarked: "Wall, I guess that man quit
eatin' 'cause he had nothin' more to eat. I'll get him more potato."
Arrived at a place on the
margin of a stagnant pool where an alligator had been rolling and sunning
himself. "See," said a man who lived here, "see, what a track that is! He
must have been a mighty big fellow. Alligators wallow like hogs and like to
lie in the sun. I'd like a shot at that fellow." Here followed a long
recital of bloody combats with the scaly enemy, in many of which he had, of
course, taken an important part. Alligators are said to be extremely fond of
negroes and dogs, and naturally the dogs and negroes are afraid of them.
Another man that I met to-day
pointed to a shallow, grassy pond before his door. "There," said he, "I once
had a tough fight with an alligator. He caught my dog. I heard him howling,
and as he was one of my best hunters I tried hard to save him. The water was
only about knee-deep and I ran up to the alligator. It was only a small one
about four feet long, and was having trouble in its efforts to drown the dog
in the shallow water. I scared him and made him let go his hold, but before
the poor crippled dog could reach the shore he was caught again, and when I
went at the alligator with a knife, it seized my arm. If it had been a
little stronger it might have eaten me instead of my dog."
I never in all my travels saw
more than one, though they are said to be abundant in most of the swamps,
and frequently attain a length of nine or ten feet. It is reported, also,
that they are very savage, oftentimes attacking men in boats. These
independent inhabitants of the sluggish waters of this low coast cannot be
called the friends of man, though I heard of one big fellow that was caught
young and was partially civilized and made to work in harness.
Many good people believe that
alligators were created by the Devil, thus accounting for their
all-consuming appetite and ugliness. But doubtless these creatures are happy
and fill the place assigned them by the great Creator of us all. Fierce and
cruel they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of God. They, also, are
his children, for He hears their cries, cares for them tenderly, and
provides their daily bread.
The antipathies existing in
the Lord's great animal family must be wisely planned, like balanced
repulsion and attraction in the mineral kingdom. How narrow we selfish,
conceited creatures are. in our sympathies! how blind to the rights of all
the rest of creation! With what dismal irreverence we speak of our fellow
mortals! Though alligators, snakes, etc., naturally repel us, they are not
mysterious evils. They dwell happily in these flowery wilds, are part of
God's family, unfallen, undepraved, and cared for with the same species of
tenderness and love as is bestowed on angels in heaven or saints on earth.
I think that most of the
antipathies which haunt and terrify us are morbid productions of ignorance
and weakness. I have better thoughts of those alligators now that I have
seen them at home. Honorable representatives of the great saurians of an
older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed
now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of dainty!
Found a beautiful lycopodium
to-day, and many grasses in the dry sunlit places called "barrens,"
"hummocks," "savannas," etc. Ferns also are abundant. What a flood of heat
and light is daily poured out on these beautiful openings and intertangled
woods! "The land of the sunny South," we say, but no part of our diversified
country is more shaded and covered from sunshine. Many a sunny sheet of
plain and prairie break the continuity of the forests of the North and West,
and the forests themselves are mostly lighted also, pierced with direct ray
lances, or [the sunlight] passing to the earth and the lowly plants in
filtered softness through translucent leaves. But in the dense Florida
forests sunlight cannot enter. It falls on the evergreen roof and rebounds
in long silvery lances and flashy spray. In many places there is not light
sufficient to feed a single green leaf on these dark forest floors. All that
the eye can reach is just a maze of tree stems and crooked leafless vine
strings. All the flowers, all the verdure, all the glory is up in the light.
The streams of Florida are
still young, and in many places are untraceable. I expected to find these
streams a little discolored from the vegetable matter that I knew they must
contain, and I was sure that in so flat a country I should not find any
considerable falls or long rapids. The streams of upper Georgia are almost
unapproachable in some places on account of luxuriant bordering vines, but
the banks are nevertheless high and well defined. Florida streams are not
yet possessed of banks and braes and definite channels. Their waters in deep
places are black as ink, perfectly opaque, and glossy on the surface as if
varnished. It often is difficult to ascertain which way they are flowing or
creeping, so slowly and so widely do they circulate through the tree-tangles
and swamps of the woods. The flowers here are strangers to me, but not more
so than the rivers and lakes. Most streams appear to travel through a
country with thoughts and plans for something beyond. But those of Florida
are at home, do not appear to be traveling at all, and seem to know nothing
of the sea.
October 17. Found a small,
silvery-leafed magnolia, a bush ten feet high. Passed through a good many
miles of open level pine barrens, as bounteously lighted as the "openings"
of Wisconsin. The pines are rather small, are planted sparsely and pretty
evenly on these sandy flats not long risen from the sea. Scarcely a specimen
of any other tree is to be found associated with the pine. But there are
some thickets of the little saw palmettoes and a magnificent assemblage of
tall grasses, their splendid panicles waving grandly in the warm wind, and
making low tuneful changes in the glistening light that is flashed from
their bent stems.
Not a pine, not a palm, in
all this garden excels these stately grass plants in beauty of wind-waving
gestures. Here are panicles that are one mass of refined purple; others that
have flowers as yellow as ripe oranges, and stems polished and shining like
steel wire. Some of the species are grouped in groves and thickets like
trees, while others may be seen waving without any companions in sight. Some
of them have wide-branching panicles like Kentucky oaks, others with a few
tassels of spike-lets drooping from a tall, leafless stem. But all of them
are beautiful beyond the reach of language. I rejoice that God has "so
clothed the grass of the. field." How strangely we are blinded to beauty and
color, form and motion, by comparative size! For example, we measure grasses
by our own stature and by the height and bulkiness of trees. But what is the
,size of the greatest man, or the tallest tree that ever overtopped a grass!
Compared with other things in God's creation the difference is nothing. We
all are only microscopic animalcula.
October 18. Am walking on
land that is almost dry. The dead levels are interrupted here and there by
sandy waves a few feet in height. It is said that not a point in all Florida
is more than three hundred feet above sea-level — a country where but little
grading is required for roads, but much bridging, and boring of many tunnels
through forests.
Before reaching this open
ground, in a lonely, swampy place in the woods, I met a large, muscular,
brawny young negro, who eyed me with glaring, wistful curiosity. I was very
thirsty at the time, and inquired of the man if there were any houses or
springs near by where I could get a drink. "Oh, yes," he replied, still
eagerly searching me with his wild eyes. Then he inquired where I came from,
where I was going, and what brought me to such a wild country, where I was
liable to be robbed, and perhaps killed.
"Oh, I am not afraid of any one robbing me," I said, "for I don't carry
anything worth stealing." "Yes," said he, "but you can't travel without
money." I started to walk on, but he blocked my way. Then I noticed that he
was trembling, and it flashed upon me all at once that he was thinking of
knocking me down in order to rob me. After glaring at my pockets as if
searching for weapons, he stammered in a quavering voice, "Do you carry
shooting-irons?" His motives, which I ought to have noted sooner, now were
apparent to me. Though I had no pistol, I instinctively threw my hand back
to my pistol pocket and, with my eyes fixed on his, I marched up close to
him and said, "I allow people to find out if I am armed or not." Then he
quailed, stepped aside, and allowed me to pass, for fear of being shot. This
was evidently a narrow escape.
A few miles farther on I came
to a cotton-field, to patches of sugar cane, carefully fenced, and some
respectable-looking houses with gardens. These little fenced fields look as
if they were intended to be for plants what cages are for birds. Discovered
a large, treelike cactus in a dooryard; a small species was abundant on the
sand-hillocks. Reached Gainesville late in the night.
When within three or four
miles of the town I noticed a light off in the pine woods. As I was very
thirsty, I thought I would venture toward it with the hope of obtaining
water. In creeping cautiously and noiselessly through the grass to discover
whether or no it was a camp of robber negroes, I came suddenly in full view
of the best lighted and most primitive of all the domestic establishments I
have yet seen in town or grove. There was, first of all, a big, glowing log
fire, illuminating the overleaning bushes and trees, bringing out leaf and
spray with more than noonday distinctness, and making still darker the
surrounding wood. In the center of this globe of light sat two negroes. I
could see their ivory gleaming from the great lips, and their smooth cheeks
flashing off light as if made of glass. Seen anywhere but in the South, the
glossy pair would have been taken for twin devils, but here it was only a
negro and his wife at their supper.
I ventured forward to the
radiant presence of the black pair, and, after being stared at with that
desperate fixedness which is said to subdue the lion, I was handed water in
a gourd from somewhere out of the darkness. I was standing for a moment
beside the big fire, looking at the unsurpassable simplicity of the
establishment, and asking questions about the road to Gainesville, when my
attention was called to a black lump of something lying in the ashes of the
fire. It seemed to be made of rubber; but ere I had time for much
speculation the woman bent wooingly over the black object and said with
motherly kindness, "Come, honey, eat yo' hominy."
At the sound of "hominy" the
rubber gave strong manifestations of vitality and proved to be a burly
little negro boy, rising from the earth naked as to the earth he came. Had
he emerged from the black muck of a marsh; we might easily have believed
that the Lord had manufactured him like Adam direct from the earth.
Surely, thought I, as I
started for Gainesville, surely I am now coming to the tropics, where the
inhabitants wear nothing but their own skins. This fashion is sufficiently
simple, — "no troublesome disguises," as Milton calls clothing, — but it
certainly is not quite in harmony with Nature. Birds make nests and nearly
all beasts make some kind of bed for their young; but these negroes allow
their younglings to lie nestless and naked in the dirt.
Gainesville is rather
attractive — an oasis in the desert, compared with other villages. It gets
its life from the few plantations located about it on dry ground that rises
islandlike a few feet above the swamps. Obtained food and lodging at a sort
of tavern.
October 19. Dry land nearly
all day. Encountered limestone, flint, coral, shells, etc. Passed several
thrifty cotton plantations with comfortable residences, contrasting sharply
with the squalid hovels of my first days in Florida. Found a single specimen
of a handsome little plant, which at once, in some mysterious way, brought
to mind a young friend in Indiana. How wonderfully our thoughts and
impressions are stored! There is that in the glance of a flower which may at
times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.
The magnolia is much more
abundant here. It forms groves and almost exclusively frosts the edges of
ponds and the banks of streams. The easy, dignified simplicity of this noble
tree, its plain leaf endowed with superb richness of color and form, its
open branches festooned with graceful vines and tillandsia, its showy
crimson fruit, and its magnificent fragrant white flowers make Magnolia
grandiflora the most lovable of Florida trees.
Discovered a great many
beautiful polygonums, petalostemons, and yellow leguminous vines. Passed
over fine sunny areas of the long-leafed and Cuban pines, which were
everywhere accompanied by fine grasses and solidagoes. Wild orange groves
are said to be rather common here, but I have seen only limes growing wild
in the woods.
Came to a hut about noon,
and, being weary and hungry, asked if I could have dinner. After serious
consultation I was told to wait, that dinner would soon be ready. I saw only
the man and his wife. If they had children they may have been hidden in the
weeds on account of nakedness. Both were suffering from malarial fever, and
were very dirty. But they did not appear to have any realizing sense of
discomfort from either the one or the other of these misfortunes. The dirt
which encircled the countenances of these people did not, like the common
dirt of the North, stick on the skin in bold union like plaster or paint,
but appeared to stand out a little on contact like a hazy, misty,
half-aerial mud envelope, the most diseased and incurable dirt that I ever
saw, evidently desperately chronic and hereditary.
It seems impossible that
children from such parents could ever be clean. Dirt and disease are
dreadful enough when separate, but combined are inconceivably horrible. The
neat cottage with a fragrant circumference of thyme and honeysuckle is
almost unknown here. I have seen dirt on garments regularly stratified, the
various strata no doubt indicating different periods of life. Some of them,
perhaps, were annual layers, furnishing, like those of trees, a means of
determining the age. Man and other civilized animals are the only creatures
that ever become dirty.
Slept in the barrens at the
side of a log. Suffered from cold and was drenched with dew. What a comfort
a companion would be in the dark loneliness of such nights! Did not dare to
make a fire for fear of discovery by robber negroes, who, I was warned,
would kill a man for a dollar or two. Had a long walk after nightfall,
hoping to discover a house. Became very thirsty and of ten was compelled to
drink from slimy pools groped for in the grass, with the fear of alligators
before my eyes.
October 20. Swamp very dense
during this day's journey. Almost one continuous sheet of water covered with
aquatic trees and vines. No stream that I crossed to-day appeared to have
the least idea where it was going. Saw an alligator plash into the sedgy
brown water by the roadside from an old log.
Arrived at night at the house
of Captain Simmons, one of the very few scholarly, intelligent men that I
have met in Florida. He had been an officer in the Confederate army in the
war and was, of course, prejudiced against the North, but polite and kind to
me, nevertheless. Our conversation, as we sat by the light of the fire, was
on the one great question, slavery and its concomitants. I managed, however,
to switch off to something more congenial occasionally — the birds of the
neighborhood, the animals, the climate, and what spring, summer, and winter
are like in these parts.
About the climate I could not
get much information, as he had always lived in the South and, of course,
saw nothing extraordinary in weather to which he had always been accustomed.
But in speaking of animals, he at once became enthusiastic and told many
stories of hairbreadth escapes, in the woods about his house, from bears,
hungry alligators, wounded deer, etc. "And now," said he, forgetting in his
kindness that I was from the hated North, "you must stay with me a few days.
Deer are abundant. I will lend you a rifle and we'll go hunting. I hunt
whenever I wish venison, and I can get it about as easily from the woods
near by as a shepherd can get mutton out of his flock. And perhaps we will
see a bear, for they are far from scarce here, and there are some big gray
wolves, too."
I expressed a wish to see
some large alligators. "Oh, well," said he, "I can take you where you will
see plenty of those fellows, but they are not much to look at. I once got a
good look at an alligator that was lying at the bottom of still, transparent
water, and I think that his eyes were the most impressively cold and cruel
of any animal I have seen. Many alligators go out to sea among the keys.
These sea alligators are the largest and most ferocious, and sometimes
attack people by trying to strike them with their tails when they are out
fishing in boats.
"Another thing I wish you to
see," he continued, "is a palmetto grove on a rich hummock a few miles from
here. The grove is about seven miles in length by three in breadth. The
ground is covered with long grass, uninterrupted with bushes or other trees.
It is the finest grove of palmettoes I have ever seen and I have oftentimes
thought that it would make a fine subject for an artist."
I concluded to stop — more to
see this wonderful palmetto hummock than to hunt. Besides, I was weary and
the prospect of getting a little rest was a tempting consideration after so
many restless nights and long, hard walks by day.
October 21. Having outlived
the sanguinary hunters' tales of my loquacious host, and breakfasted
sumptuously on fresh venison and "caller" fish from the sea, I set out for
the grand palm grove. I, had seen these dazzling sun-children in every day
of my walk through Florida, but they were usually standing solitary, or in
groups of three or four; but to-day I was to see them by the mile. The
captain led me a short distance through his corn-field and showed me a trail
which would conduct me to the palmy hummock. He pointed out the general
direction, which I noted upon my compass.
"Now," said he, "at the other
side of my farthest field you will come to a jungle of cat-briers, but will
be able to pass them if you manage to keep the trail. You will find that the
way is not by any means well marked, for in passing through a broad swamp
the trail makes a good many abrupt turns to avoid deep water, fallen trees,
or impenetrable thickets. You will have to wade a good deal, and in passing
the water-covered places you will have to watch for the point where the
trail comes out on the opposite side."
I made my way through the
briers, which in strength and ferocity equaled those of Tennessee, followed
the path through all of its dim waverings, waded the many opposing pools,
and, emerging suddenly from the leafy darkness of the swamp forest, at last
stood free and unshaded on the border of the sun-drenched palm garden. 'It
was a level area of grasses and sedges, smooth as a prairie, well starred
with flowers, and bounded like a clearing by a wall of vine-laden trees.
The palms had full possession
and appeared to enjoy their sunny home. There was no jostling, no apparent
effort to outgrow each other. Abundance of sunlight was there for every
crown, and plenty to fall between. I walked enchanted in their midst. What a
landscape! Only palms as far as the eye could reach! Smooth pillars rising
from the grass, each capped with a sphere of leaves, shining in the sun as
bright as a star. The silence and calm were as -deep as ever I found in the
dark, solemn pine woods of Canada, and that contentment which is an
attribute of the best of God's plant people was as impressively felt in this
alligator wilderness as in the homes of the happy, healthy people of the
North.
The admirable Linnaeus calls
palms "the princes of the vegetable world." I know that there is grandeur
and nobility in their character, and that there are palms nobler far than
these. But in rank they appear to me to stand below both the oak and the
pine. The motions of the palms, their gestures, are not very graceful. They
appear to best advantage when perfectly motionless in the noontide calm and
intensity of light. But they rustle and rock in the evening wind. I have
seen grasses waving with far more dignity. And when our northern pines are
waving and bowing in sign of worship with the winter storm-winds, where is
the prince of palms that could have the conscience to demand their homage!
Members of this palm
congregation were of all sizes with respect to their stems; but their
glorious crowns were all alike. In development there is only the terminal
bud to consider. The young palm of this species emerges from the ground in
full strength, one cluster of leaves arched every way, making a sphere about
ten or twelve feet in diameter. The outside lower leaves gradually become
yellow, wither, and break off, the petiole snapping squarely across, a few
inches from the stem. New leaves develop with wonderful rapidity. They stand
erect at first, but gradually arch outward as they expand their blades and
lengthen their petioles.
New leaves arise constantly
from the center of the grand bud, while old ones break away from the
outside. The splendid crowns are thus kept about the same size, perhaps a
little larger than in youth while they are yet on the ground. As the
development of the central axis goes on, the crown is gradually raised on a
stem of about six to twelve inches in diameter. This stem is of equal
thickness at the top and at the bottom and when young is roughened with the
broken petioles. But these petiole-stumps fall off and disappear as they
become old, and the trunk becomes smooth as if turned in a lathe.
After some hours in this
charming forest I started on the return journey before night, on account of
the difficulties of the swamp and the brier patch. On leaving the palmettoes
and entering the vine-tangled, half-submerged forest I sought long and
carefully, but in vain, for the trail, for I had drifted about too
incautiously in search of plants. But, recollecting the direction that I had
followed in the morning, I took a compass bearing and started to penetrate
the swamp in a direct line.
Of course I had a sore weary
time, pushing through the tanglement of falling, standing, and half-fallen
trees and bushes, to say nothing of knotted vines as remarkable for their
efficient army of interlocking and lancing prickers as for their length and
the number of their blossoms.
But these were not my
greatest obstacles, nor yet the pools and lagoons full of dead leaves and
alligators. It was the army of cat-briers that I most dreaded. I knew that I
would have to find the narrow slit of a lane before dark or spend the night
with mosquitoes and alligators, without food or fire. The entire distance
was not great, but a traveler in open woods can form no idea of the crooked
and strange difficulties of pathless locomotion in these thorny, watery
Southern tangles, especially in pitch darkness. I struggled hard and kept my
course, leaving the general direction only when drawn aside by a plant of
extraordinary promise, that I wanted for a specimen, or when I had to make
the half-circuit of a pile of trees, or of a deep lagoon or pond.
In wading I never attempted
to keep my clothes dry, because the water was too deep, and the necessary
care would consume too much time. Had the water that I was forced to wade
been transparent it would have lost much of its difficulty. But as it was, I
constantly expected to plant my feet on an alligator, and therefore
proceeded with strained caution. The opacity of the water caused uneasiness
also on account of my inability to determine its depth. In many places I was
compelled to turn back, after wading forty or fifty yards, and to try again
a score of times before I succeeded in getting across a single lagoon.
At length, after miles of
wading and wallowing, I arrived at the grand cat-brier encampment which
guarded the whole forest in solid phalanx, unmeasured miles up and down
across my way. Alas! the trail by which I had crossed in the morning was not
to be found, and night was near. In vain I scrambled back and forth in
search of an opening. There was not even a strip of dry ground on which to
rest. Everywhere the long briers arched over to the vines and bushes of the
watery swamp, leaving no standing-ground between them. I began to think of
building some sort of a scaffold in a tree to rest on through the night, but
concluded to make one more desperate effort to find the narrow track.
After calm, concentrated
recollection of my course, I made a long exploration toward the left down
the brier line, and after scrambling a mile or so, perspiring and bleeding,
I discovered the blessed trail and escaped to dry land and the light.
Reached the captain at sundown. Dined on milk and johnny-cake and fresh
venison. Was congratulated on my singular good fortune and woodcraft, and
soon after supper was sleeping the deep sleep of the weary and the safe.
October 22. This morning I
was easily prevailed upon by the captain and an ex-judge, who was
rusticating here, to join in a deer hunt. Had a delightful ramble in the
long grass and flowery barrens. Started one deer but did not draw a single
shot. The captain, the judge, and myself stood at different stations where
the deer was expected to pass, while a brother of the captain entered the
woods to arouse the game from cover. The one deer that he started took a
direction different from any which this particular old buck had ever been
known to take in times past, and in so doing was cordially cursed as being
the "d-dest deer that ever ran unshot." To me it appeared as "d-lest" work
to slaughter God's cattle for sport. "They were made for us," say these
self-approving preachers; "for our food, our recreation, or other uses not
yet discovered." As truthfully we might say on behalf of a bear, when he
deals successfully with an unfortunate hunter, "glen and other bipeds were
made for bears, and thanks be to God for claws and teeth so long."
Let a Christian hunter go to
the Lord's woods and kill his well-kept beasts, or wild Indians, and it is
well; but let an enterprising specimen of these proper, predestined victims
go to houses and fields and kill the most worthless person of the vertical
godlike killers, - oh! that is horribly unorthodox, and on the part of the
Indians atrocious murder! Well, I have precious little sympathy for the
selfish propriety of civilized man, and if a war of races should occur
between the wild beasts and Lord Man I would be tempted to sympathize with
the bears. |
