Chapter III: Part 3

[This marvel of nature is not without its tradition,--one of
Indian origin,--in which is repeated, with suitable variations,
the familiar Lover's Leap narrative. A more prosaic and modern
interest attaches to it, in its having been chosen as the route
of a railroad, nature's contribution of a passage through a
difficult mountain wall.]

PLANTATION LIFE IN WAR TIMES.

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.

[Russell, of former celebrity as war correspondent of _The
Times_, visited the seceded States during the early period of
the American Civil War. His letters thence, published later as
"Pictures of Southern Life," are full of graphic descriptions
of scenes and feelings in the Confederate States during the era
of enthusiasm and hopefulness, before the war had borne its
harvest of doubt and misery. It is not our purpose, however, to
give his experiences in this special field. It is travel, not
war, with which we are concerned, and we confine ourself to an
account of a visit to a plantation in the vicinity of
Charleston. A short preliminary sketch of the ebb and flow of
rumor in war times, however, may be of interest.]

The rolling fire of the revolution is fast sweeping over the prairie, and one must fly before it or burn. I am obliged to see all that can be seen of the South at once, and then, armed with such safeguards as I can procure, to make an effort to recover my communications. Bridges broken, rails torn up, telegraphs pulled down,--I am quite in the air, and air charged with powder and fire. One of the most extraordinary books in the world could be made out of the cuttings and parings of the newspapers which have been published within the last few days. The judgments, statements, asseverations of the press, everywhere necessarily hasty, ill-sifted, and off-hand, do not aspire to even an ephemeral existence here. They are of use if they serve the purpose of the moment, and of the little boys who commence their childhood in deceit, and continue to adolescence in iniquity, by giving vocal utterance to the "sensation" headings of the journals they retail so sharply and so curtly.

Talk of the superstition of the Middle Ages, or of the credulity of the more advanced period of rural life; laugh at the Holy Coat of Treves, or groan over the Lady of Salette; deplore the faith in winking pictures, or in a _communique_ of the _Moniteur_; moralize on the superstition which discovers more in the liquefaction of the ichor of St. Gennaro than a chemical trick; but if you desire to understand how far faith can see and trust among the people who consider themselves the most civilized and intelligent in the world, you will study the American journals, and read the telegrams which appear in them.

One day the Seventh New York Regiment is destroyed for the edification of the South, and is cut up into such small pieces that none of it is ever seen afterwards. The next day it marches into Washington or Annapolis, all the better for the process. Another, in order to encourage the North, it is said that hecatombs of dead were carried out of Fort Moultrie, packed up, for easy travelling, in boxes. Again, to irritate both, it is credibly stated that Lord Lyons is going to interfere, or that an Anglo-French fleet is coming to watch the ports; and so on, through a wild play of fancy, inexact in line, as though the batteries were charged with the aurora borealis or summer lightning, instead of the respectable, steady, manageable offspring of acid and metal....

I am now, however, dealing with South Carolina, which has been the _fons et origo_ of the secession doctrines and their development into the full life of the Confederate States. The whole foundation on which South Carolina rests is cotton and a certain amount of rice; or rather she bases her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in Europe for those products of her soil, believing and asserting, as she does, that England and France cannot and will not do without them. Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter encumbering the ground. Rice, without demand for it, is unsalable grain in store and on the field. Cotton at ten cents a pound is boundless prosperity, empire, and superiority, and rice and grain need no longer be regarded.

In the matter of slave labor, South Carolina argues pretty much in this way: England and France require our products. In order to meet their wants we must cultivate our soil. There is only one way of doing so. The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of the year; he cannot work in the manner required by the crops. He must, therefore, employ a race suited to the labor, and that is a race which will only work when it is obliged to do so.

[And so on throughout the old argument, which, fortunately, the
logic of time has in great measure disproved. But, leaving this
phase of the subject, we shall accompany our traveller on a
visit to the land of rice and slave labor.]

Early one morning I started in a steamer to visit a plantation in the Pedee and Maccamaw district, in the island coast of the State, north of Charleston. Passing Sumter, on which men are busily engaged, under the Confederate flag, in making good damages and mounting guns, we put out a few miles to sea, and with the low sandy shore, dotted with soldiers and guard-houses and clumps of trees, on our left, in a few hours pass the Santee River, and enter an estuary into which the Pedee and Maccamaw run a few miles farther to the northwest.

The steamer ran alongside a jetty and pier, which was crowded by men in uniform, waiting for the news and for supplies of creature comforts. Ladies were cantering along the fine hard beach, and some gigs and tax-carts, fully laden, rolled along very much as one sees them at Scarborough. The soldiers on the pier were all gentlemen of the county. Some, dressed in gray tunics and yellow facings, in high felt-hats and plumes and jack-boots, would have done no discredit in face, figure, and bearing to the gayest cavaliers who ever thundered at the heels of Prince Rupert. Their horses, full of Carolinian fire and mettle, stood picketed under the trees along the margin of the beach. Among these men, who had been doing the duty of common troopers in patrolling the sea-coast, were gentlemen possessed of large estates and princely fortunes; and one who stood among them was pointed out to me as captain of a company, for whose use his liberality provided unbounded daily libations of champagne, and the best luxuries which French ingenuity can safely imprison in those well-known caskets with which Crimean warriors were not unacquainted at the close of the campaign.

They were eager for news, which was shouted out to them by their friends in the steamer, and one was struck by the intimate personal cordiality and familiar acquaintance which existed among them. Three heavy guns, mounted in an earthwork defended by palisades, covered the beach and the landing-place, and the garrison was to have been reinforced by a regiment from Charleston, which, however, had not got in readiness to go up on our steamer, owing to some little difficulties between the volunteers, their officers, and the quartermaster-general's department.

As the "Nina" approaches the tumble-down wharf, two or three citizens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to receive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding positions for the better observation of our proceedings. There is an air of quaint simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about Georgetown, refreshingly antagonistic to the bustle and tumult of most American cities. While waiting for our vehicle we enjoyed the hospitality of one of our friends, who took us into an old-fashioned angular wooden mansion, more than a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying in its quaint wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and window, to the durability of its cypress timbers and the preservative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was the crack house of the old settlement, and the residence of the founder of the female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it his halting-place when passing to and fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose-trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch and filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave me a good idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty years ago.

At length we were ready for our journey, and, mounted in two light covered vehicles, proceeded along the sandy track, which, after a while, led us to a deep cut in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only broken by the cry of a woodpecker, the boom of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For miles we passed through the shadow of this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles, containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome as we passed. Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the ferry-boats of Switzerland, ready for our reception.

Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts away into a shrubbery, guarded by a rustic gate-way, passing through which, we are brought by a sudden turn into the planter's house, buried in trees, which dispute with the greensward and with wild flower-beds every yard of the space which lies between the hall-door and the waters of the Pedee; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice crops, marked by the deep water cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown gliding as it were through the fields indicate the existence of another navigable river still beyond.

Leaving with regret the veranda which commanded so charming a foreground, we enter the house, and are reminded by its low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with additions, made by the luxury and love of foreign travel, of more than one generation of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early colonial governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery of which Copley has left us too few exemplars; and one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An excellent library--filled with collections of French and English classics, and with those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the _memoires pour servir_, books of travel and history such as delighted our forefathers in the last century, and many works of American and general history--affords ample occupation for a rainy day.

But, alas! these, and all things good which else the house affords, can be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes, borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on their shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity 'tis true, the old Madeira garnered 'neath the roof settles down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the moon enhances while softening the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of mocking-birds fills the grove.

Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can only be found among the descendants of the ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial ere the demon of oidium had dried up their generous sources forever. To these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the _galette_, compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and fruits, all good of their kind. And is there anything bitter rising up from the bottom of the social bowl? My black friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries, and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire, off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negrohood, which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen, within the short time I have been in this part of the world, several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something suspicious in the constant, never-ending statement that "we are not afraid of our slaves." The curfew and the night patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations, prove that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so with him.

These people are fed by their master. They have upward of half a pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master. He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield plentifully; for the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in whenever the planter requires it, by means of floodgates and small canals, through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.

[Following our traveller in his peregrinations through the
South, we next take him up on a sugar plantation on the
Mississippi. The part of his journey in which we now find him
is to be taken by boat.]

Charon pushed his skiff into the water--there was a good deal of rain in it--in shape of snuffer-dish, some ten feet long and a foot deep. I got in, and the conscious waters immediately began vigorously spurting through the cotton wadding wherewith the craft was calked. Had we got out into the stream we should have had a swim for it, and they do say the Mississippi is the most dangerous river for that healthful exercise in the known world.

"Why! deuce take you" (I said at least that, in my wrath), "don't you see the boat is leaky?"

"See it now for true, massa. Nobody able to tell dat till massa get in, tho'."

Another skiff proved to be stanch. I bade good-by to my friend, and sat down in my boat, which was soon forced along up-stream close to the bank, in order to get a good start across to the other side. The view, from my lonely position, was curious, but not at all picturesque. The landscape had disappeared at once. The world was bounded on both sides by a high bank, and was constituted by a broad river,--just as if one were sailing down an open sewer of enormous length and breadth. Above the bank rose, however, the tops of tall trees and the chimneys of sugar-houses. A row of a quarter of an hour brought us to the levee on the other side. I ascended the bank, and directly in front of me, across the road, appeared a carriage gate-way and wickets of wood, painted white, in a line of park palings of the same material, which extended up and down the road far as the eye could follow, and guarded wide-spread fields of maize and sugar-cane. An avenue of trees, with branches close set, drooping and overarching a walk paved with red brick, led to the house, the porch of which was just visible at the extremity of the lawn, with clustering flowers, rose, jasmine, and creepers clinging to the pillars supporting the veranda.

The proprietor, who had espied my approach, issued forth with a section of sable attendants in his rear, and gave me a hearty welcome. The house was larger and better than the residences even of the richest planters, though it was in need of some little repair, and had been built perhaps fifty years ago, in the old Irish fashion, who built well, ate well, drank well, and, finally, paid very well. The view from the belvedere was one of the most striking of its kind in the world. If an English agriculturist could see six thousand acres of the finest land in one field, unbroken by hedge or boundary, and covered with the most magnificent crops of tasselling Indian corn and sprouting sugar-cane, as level as a billiard-table, he would surely doubt his senses. But here is literally such a sight. Six thousand acres, better tilled than the finest patch in all the Lothians, green as Meath pastures, which can be cultivated for a hundred years to come without requiring manure, of depth practically unlimited, and yielding an annual profit on what is sold off it of at least twenty pounds an acre at the old prices and usual yield of sugar. Rising up in the midst of the verdure are the white lines of the negro cottages and the plantation offices and sugar-houses, which look like large public edifices in the distance. And who is the lord of all this fair domain? The proprietor of Houmas and Orange grove is a man, a self-made one, who has attained his apogee on the bright side of half a century, after twenty-five years of successful business.

When my eyes "uncurtained the early morning," I might have imagined myself in the magic garden of Cherry and Fair Star, so incessant and multifarious were the carols of the birds, which were the only happy colored people I saw in my Southern tour, notwithstanding the assurances of the many ingenious and candid gentlemen who attempted to prove to me that the palm of terrestrial felicity must be awarded to their negroes. As I stepped through my window upon the veranda, a sharp chirp called my attention to a mocking-bird perched upon a rose-bush beneath, whom my presence seemed to annoy to such a degree that I retreated behind my curtain, whence I observed her flight to a nest, cunningly hid in a creeping rose trailed around a neighboring column of the house, where she imparted a breakfast of spiders and grasshoppers to her gaping and clamorous offspring. While I was admiring the motherly grace of this melodious fly-catcher, a servant brought coffee, and announced that the horses were ready, and that I might have a three hours ride before breakfast.

If I regretted the absence of the English agriculturist when I beheld the six thousand acres of cane and sixteen hundred of maize unfolded from the belvedere the day previous, I longed for his presence still more when I saw those evidences of luxuriant fertility attained without the use of phosphates or guano. The rich Mississippi bottoms need no manure; a rotation of maize with cane affords them the necessary recuperative action. The cane of last year's plant is left in stubble, and renews its growth this spring under the title of _ratoons_. When the maize is in tassel, cow-peas are dropped between the rows, and when the lordly stalk, of which I measured many twelve or even fifteen feet in height, bearing three and sometimes four ears, is topped to admit the ripening sun, the pea-vine twines itself around the trunk with a profusion of leaf and tendril that supplies the planter with the most desirable fodder for his mules in "rolling-time," which is their season of trial. Besides this, the corn-blades are culled and cured. These are the best meals of the Southern race-horse, and constitute nutritious hay without dust....

As we ride through the wagon-roads,--of which there are not less than thirty miles in this confederation of four plantations held together by the purse and the life of our host,--the unwavering exactitude of the rows of cane, which run without deviation at right angles with the river down to the cane-brake, two miles off, proves that the negro would be a formidable rival in a ploughing-match. The cane has been "laid by;" that is, it requires no more labor, and will soon "lap," or close up, though the rows are seven feet apart. It feathers like a palm top: a stalk which was cut measured six feet, although from the ridges it was but waist-high. On dissecting it near the root we find five nascent joints not a quarter of an inch apart. In a few weeks more these will shoot up like a spy-glass pulled out to its focus....

In the rear of this great plantation there are eighteen thousand additional acres of cane-brake which are being slowly reclaimed.... We extended our ride into this jungle, on the borders of which, in the unfinished clearing, I saw plantations of "negro corn," the sable cultivators of which seem to have disregarded the symmetry practised in the fields of their master, who allows them from Saturday noon until Monday's cockcrow for the care of their private interests....

Corn, chicken, and eggs are, from time immemorial, the perquisites of the negro, who has the monopoly of the two last-named articles in all well-ordered Louisiana plantations. Indeed, the white man cannot compete with them in raising poultry, and our host was evidently delighted when one of his negroes, who had brought a dozen Muscovy ducks to the mansion, refused to sell them to him except for cash. "But, Louis, won't you trust me? Am I not good for three dollars?" "Good enough, massa; but dis nigger want de money to buy flour and coffee for him young family. Folks at Donaldsonville will trust massa,--won't trust nigger." The money was paid, and, as the negro left us, his master observed, with a sly, humorous twinkle, "That fellow sold forty dollars' worth of corn last year, and all of them feed their chickens with my corn, and sell their own."

AMONG FLORIDA ALLIGATORS.

S. C. CLARKE.

[To the several stories of hunting life which we have
introduced into these pages we may add one description of the
large game of the streams and lakes of Florida, the bone-clad
alligator. With it is given a sketch of the Everglade region
which may be of interest.]

Having organized an expedition to the great Lake Okechobee, some thirty miles due west from the Indian River Inlet, we hired a wagon and pair of mules to carry our tents and necessary baggage, but, no other animals being attainable, only those of us who were fit for a tramp of nearly a hundred miles could go. Colonel Vincent, Macleod and Herbert of the "Victoria," Captain Morris, Roberts, and myself, with the two pilots, Pecetti and Weldon, as guides, and Tom and a negro whom we picked up at Capron for cooks,--ten men in all, well-armed,--we were strong enough to insure respect from any roving party of Seminoles who might have been tempted to rob a weaker party. There are at this time, it is supposed, two or three hundred of these Indians in the region between Lake Okechobee and the Keys, descendants of a few Seminoles who concealed themselves in these inaccessible fastnesses when the greater part of their nation was sent West in 1842. They plant some corn on the islands of the Everglades, but live principally by the chase. Hitherto they have not been hostile to the whites, but as they increase in numbers faster than the white settlers, it is not impossible that they may reoccupy Southern Florida sooner or later, it being, in fact, a region suited only to the roving hunter....

The first day we made about twenty miles through a forest of yellow pine, such as stretches along the Southern coast from Virginia to Alabama, the trees standing thirty or forty feet apart, with little underbrush. Here and there we came upon a hummock of good soil, covered with the live-oak, magnolia, and cabbage-palm, all interlaced with vines and creepers, so as to form an almost impassable jungle. Now the road would lead into a wide savanna or meadow, waving with grass and browsed by herds of wild cattle and deer. In these meadows were set bright, mirror-like lakes, the abodes of water-fowl and wading birds, black bass, and the grim alligator, which in these solitudes, not being impressed with the fear of man, will hardly trouble himself to move out of the way. March in this region corresponding to May in the Middle States, the birds were in full spring song in every thicket,--the cardinal, the nonpareil, the mocking-bird, and our old familiar robin, whose cheerful note greets the traveller all over North America. Up and down the great pine trunks ran the red and gray squirrels, the little brown hare scudded through the palmetto scrub, and the turkey-buzzards floated above our heads in long easy circles.

So we fared on our way till about four P.M., when we made our camp on a clear branch or creek which issued from a lake near by, and while some of the party went to look for a deer, Captain Herbert and I took our rods and went up the creek towards the lake. Casting our spoons into a deep hole, we soon took a mess of bass and pike, which were very abundant and eager to be caught, when, as we were preparing to return to camp, we suddenly saw an alligator about eight feet long quietly stealing towards us. I seized a young pine-tree about as thick as my arm, and made for him. Not at all alarmed, the beast opened his jaws and advanced, hissing loudly. I brought down my club with full force upon his head, but it seemed to produce no impression; he still advanced as I retreated battering his skull.

"What is that brute's head made of?" inquired Herbert, as he came to my assistance with another club; and between us we managed to stun the hard-lived reptile, and left him on the ground.

The hunters brought in a young buck and two turkeys, so that we had a plentiful supper after our tramp....

About two o'clock that night we were disturbed by the mules, which had been staked out to graze hard by, and which retreated towards the camp to the end of their ropes, snorting with terror. The dogs rushed to the scene of disturbance, and appeared to have a fight with some animal which escaped in the woods. Our guides thought it was a panther, and at daylight they started, with Morris and myself and all the dogs, to hunt for it. The hounds soon hit the trail, which we followed into a cypress swamp about half a mile from the camp, in the midst of which they started a large panther, which, being hotly pressed by the hounds, treed in a big live-oak on the farther side of the swamp. When we came up we plainly saw the beast lying out on a branch which stretched horizontally from the trunk about twenty-five feet from the ground.

"Now," said Pecetti, "you two fire first, and if you don't kill, Weldon and I will be ready. Aim at the heart."

Morris and I fired, and the panther sprang from the tree among the dogs, which all piled on him at once. There was a confused mass of fur rolling on the ground, snarling, and snapping, for half a minute; then the panther broke loose, and was making off, when Weldon put half a dozen buckshot in his head, and he rolled over and over, so nearly dead that when the dogs mounted him again he could do no mischief. He had badly cut both the deer-hounds, however, which had been the first to seize him: Weldon's fox-hounds, having more experience with this sort of game, had kept clear of his claws. It was a fine male, measuring eight feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and we took the skin for a trophy. The tenacity of life in these large cats is very great. One of our balls had penetrated the chest, and the other had broken the fore leg, but he was still able to shake off the dogs, and would probably have escaped but for Weldon's shot....

The next morning, March 13, we breakfasted upon a couple of gophers or land-tortoises which the men had found the day before in the pine-woods. These creatures are about eighteen inches long, and weigh twelve or fifteen pounds. A stew of the gopher and the terminal buds of the cabbage-palm is a favorite Florida dish. About noon we came suddenly upon the shore of the great lake Okechobee, which extends away to the west and south as far as the eye can reach: in fact, the shores are so low as to be invisible at any distance. This is by far the largest sheet of water in the State, being about forty miles long and thirty wide, but it is not deep. It contains on the western side several islands, which are occupied by the Seminoles. To the south and east of this lake are the Everglades, or Grassy Lakes, a region where land and water are mingled,--rivers, lakes, dry islands, and wet marshes all jumbled together in confusion, and extending over many hundred square miles, the chosen abode of the alligator, the gar-fish, the snapping-turtle, the moccasin snake, and other hideous and ferocious creatures more or less mythical, and recalling those earlier periods in the earth's history when the great monsters, the Ichthyosauri and the Plesiosauri, wallowed and crawled over the continents.

We made our camp in a grove near the lake, almost on the spot where Taylor fought his battle in 1838. As soon as this was done the pilots went in search of a tree to make canoes. They found not far off a large cypress which served, and by the next night they had completed two canoes, each about twelve feet long and eighteen inches wide, suitable for navigating the lake and able to carry four men each. In the mean time we had commenced hostilities against the alligators, which were here very large, bold, and numerous. They lay basking in the sun upon the beach in front of our camp, some of them fifteen feet long, and it became necessary to drive them away, lest they should devour our dogs, or even our mules, for some of these monsters looked able to do it. We opened fire upon them with repeating rifles, and if any Indians were within hearing they must have supposed that General Taylor had come back again, such was the rapidity of our fusillade. The brain of the alligator is small, and developed chiefly in the region of destructiveness; but after a dozen were killed and many more wounded, it seemed to dawn upon their perceptions that this part of the lake was unsafe, and they gradually took themselves away. I disapprove of killing animals for mere sport, and destroy not deliberately except when I wish to use them for food; but the alligator is the enemy of all living creatures, the tyrant of the waters, and the death of one saves the lives of hundreds of other animals. So blaze away at the 'gators, O ye Florida tourists!--you will not kill many of them, anyway: their shells are too thick,--but spare the pelicans, who are a harmless race of fisherfolk, like ourselves.

There were great numbers of large turtles in the lake, _Chelonura_ and _Trionyx_, from two to three feet long; gar-fish also, almost as big as the alligators. These mailed warriors, like the knights of old, exercise their prowess chiefly upon the defenceless multitudes of the fresh waters, but I have heard of half a large alligator being found in the stomach of a shark at a river mouth. In spite of all these destroyers, the lake swarmed with fish. Pecetti could generally get enough black bass, pike, or perch at one or two casts of his net to feed our whole party if at any time it happened that they would not bite at the hook.

A curious feature of the lake and river scenery is the floating island. This is principally formed of the water-lettuce, or _Pistia_, an aquatic plant with long roots which descend to the bottom. These beds of _Pistia_ become matted together with grass and weeds, so as to be thick enough to bear the weight of small animals, and even sometimes of man. In strong winds these islands break loose from their anchorage and float away for miles, till they bring up in some quiet bay, where the plants again take root. Lake Okechobee contains many of these floating meadows, which are a great resort for ducks and water-fowl. In fact, one would think that all the ducks, divers, herons, curlews, ibises, cranes, and waders generally had assembled here in mass-meeting. Among them are those rare and beautiful species, the scarlet ibis, roseate spoonbill, and black-necked stilt. The ducks, being birds of passage, spending their summers up North, are acquainted with men and their arts, and are comparatively shy, but the native birds are very tame and can easily be approached.

I was awakened the next morning at sunrise by sounds from the woods as of a gang of ship-carpenters or calkers at work. It was the great ivory-billed woodpecker (_Picus principalis_) tearing off the bark and probing the dead trees for insects and grubs, and making a noise which could plainly be heard half a mile in the still morning air. Another sound of a different character now made itself heard from the swamps. It was something like the bellowing of bulls, and proceeded from the old male alligators calling to their mates. This indicates the coming of spring, the breeding-season of these creatures. William Bartram, who travelled in East Florida a hundred years ago, gives a thrilling account of the terrible combats which he witnessed in the St. John's River between these rival champions, who did not hesitate to attack him in his boat.

The next day, March 15, being in want of meat, Colonel Vincent, Dr. Macleod, Morris, and I started for a hunt, taking Pecetti for guide, since nothing is easier than to get lost in this wilderness. We kept up the lake shore to the north on the sandy beach, towards the mouth of the Kissimmee River, which here enters the lake. This is a deep and rapid stream, which drains the great wet prairies to the north, and in the rainy season must carry a large volume of water. Like the lake, it has great patches of water-lettuce, which in some places almost bridge the channel. Much of its course is through swamps, though in some places the pine barrens and live-oak hummocks approach its banks. It contains immense quantities of fish,--pike, bass, and perch.

In the first hummock which we reached the colonel shot a buck, and I got two young turkeys from a flock. As we emerged from this hummock the guide spied a herd of wild cattle feeding on the prairie about half a mile off, and by his direction we crept through the scrub as far as it afforded cover, and then trusted to the high grass for concealment till we got within a hundred yards of the herd, which consisted of about twenty cows and calves, with a couple of bulls. The doctor and colonel fired together and brought down a heifer. A big bull immediately charged towards the smoke and report of the guns, for he could not see us. On he came, head down and tail erect, bellowing with rage,--a magnificent animal of brindled color, with an immensely heavy neck and shoulder, like a bison, but without the mane. When within fifty yards I fired at his head: the ball struck him full in the forehead and staggered him, but he shook his head and kept straight for us. I gave him another shot, which struck him in the chest and turned him, when Pecetti gave him sixteen buckshot in the shoulder from his big double-barrel, which brought him down, dying bravely in defence of his family.

"His carcass is too old and tough to be of any good," said the guide, "but I'll take off his hide: the heifer will give us meat enough."

While he was butchering, Morris returned to the camp and sent out Tom with the wagon to bring in the beef and venison. It was not long before a flock of turkey-buzzards appeared in sight and floated in circles above our heads, waiting for our departure to begin their feast. It was formerly the opinion of naturalists that these birds were guided by scent in the discovery of the dead animals upon which they feed, but later investigations show that they are led by their acute vision; and my own experience convinces me that this is the fact. As we were returning to camp through the hummock, Pecetti killed a large rattlesnake: it was over five feet long, and as thick as the calf of a man's leg....

On the morning of March 20, Captain Herbert, Pecetti and I went on a fishing excursion up the lake in a canoe. A few casts of the net near the shore procured a supply of small fish of the mullet species for bait, and we paddled up near to the inlet of the Kissimmee. Here we found the alligators and gars too numerous, they having collected probably to prey upon the fish which there enter the lake. In a quiet bay near the fringe of _Pistia_ and water-lilies, where the water was five or six feet deep, we trolled with a spoon for black bass, and took some of very large size,--eight, ten and twelve pounds....

What adds much to the interest of fishing in strange waters is the uncertainty of the sport and the variety of species; and in this lake we could not tell whether the next offer would be from a peaceful perch, a bounding bass, a piratical pike, or a gigantic gar. I put a chub, or a fish resembling it, eight or nine inches long upon a gang of large hooks, and cast it astern with a hand-line. Presently I saw a great roll towards it from out the weeds, and my line stopped short. I had something very heavy, which, however, played in the sluggish fashion of the pike family, and in ten minutes, without much resistance, I had it alongside the canoe, and it was gaffed by Pecetti. It was a huge pike, four feet four inches long, and weighed, when we got to camp, thirty-four pounds. Pecetti called it the striped pike, and said he had seen them six feet long in some of the lakes: perhaps _Esox vittatus_ (Rafinesque) of the Mississippi Basin.

By this time the gars had collected about us in such numbers that the other fish were driven away: we found it impossible to get a hook into their bony jaws or bills, and only succeeded in capturing one of small size by slipping a noose over its head as it followed the bait. This gar-fish is useless as food, but we wanted a few specimens for Dr. White, it being in demand for museums, particularly in foreign countries, as it belongs to a species exclusively American, and represents an order of fishes (the ganoids) of which few families at present exist. This one, _Lepidosteus_, has a wide range in America, being found from Florida to Wisconsin. Another American ganoid is _Amia calva_, the dog-fish or bow-fin, which is very numerous in Western rivers. Both are voracious, but unfit for food. They are described by Agassiz as being of an old-fashioned type, such as were common in the earlier geologic periods, and this is one among many proofs that North America is the oldest of the continents.

Morris, Vincent, and the other hunters brought in to-day a large supply of game,--deer, turkeys, and ducks,--but sustained the loss of one of Morris's deer-hounds, which they supposed to have been taken by an alligator while swimming a lake in pursuit of a deer. They were some miles south of the camp when this occurred. They did not see the alligator, but the dog suddenly disappeared, and was not to be found after a long search. Morris felt so much disgusted by the loss of this valuable dog that he wished to return to the yacht and go down towards the Keys. So we started the next morning, and arrived at the inlet on the 23d. The weather had been delightful, as is usually the case in Florida in winter, but the day we arrived at the inlet we encountered the beginning of the equinoctial storm, which lasted two days and was very violent.

IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE.

THERESE YELVERTON.

[Among the many marvels of nature in the United States the
Mammoth Cave holds a prominent position, and we feel it
incumbent on us to accompany some of our company of travellers
into its depths. The "Teresina in America" of Therese Yelverton
(Viscountess Avonmore) affords us the opportunity, of which we
avail ourselves in the following selection.]

We arrived at the Mammoth Cave on one of those heavenly days which earthly words fail to depict. It was the second week in November, the "Indian summer," the most charming season in America. If anything were necessary to convince me that a future beatitude is no fiction, it would be this foretaste of bliss in such days as these, when the whole being--mind and body--seems lapped in a state of peace and beatitude combined. Anxieties and worldly cares seem to float away into the dim distance; our love is free from feverish excitement, and hate has lost its gall and sting. The golden light which floats around mellows our soul to repose. There is that exhilarating, yet balmy nourishment in the atmosphere which lifts the weary spirit from its damp and earthly coil, and makes it glad, and light, and gleesome. The heavy "heart bowed down by weight of woe" suddenly imbibes some of the joyous elasticity which fills the insect tribe,--the bees and grasshoppers, the golden fly, glittering and humming in pure ecstasies, and the merry little beetles revelling in one continuous contra-dance. Rarely, indeed, can we overcharged human beings feel as blithesome as the insect world; we seek to taste the apples of delight which turn to ashes in our mouth, and neglect to sip with them the nectar in the breeze. What can we do? these breezes come so seldom. The insect sparkles to-day in the sunshine and to-morrow it dies. We of the superior race have to live and labor through sunshine and shade, and can only catch these rosy minutes as they fly.

Some of these halcyon moments we enjoyed on that fortunate day we arrived at the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. The earth was covered with its autumn carpet of dry dark leaves,--brown and glossy on one side, deep violet on the other,--and crinkling and crushing beneath our tread, they kept up a staccato treble to the dulcet sighing of the wind through the yellow leaves still lingering on the trees. A delicious concert of sweet sounds, and one that Mozart and Mendelssohn must have studied well and carefully. The atmosphere was bright and clear as under a summer sun, but without the heat; the air as fine and bracing as winter, but without the cold. We lost sight entirely of the two great tormentors, heat and cold, and for the few days of our stay forgot their very existence.

I have heard of persons feeling, under the effect of laughter, as light and buoyant as if floating in ambient air. The atmosphere during their "Indian summer" must, doubtless, be strongly impregnated with oxygen, for we experienced a similar sensation; which was probably deepened by the fact of our having come from Louisville, where those hotel stairs had seemed a perfect toil to us.

The country around the caves, for eight or ten miles, was a series of deep ravines, studded with projecting cliffs and rocks, and covered with oak--principally the English oak--and another gigantic species, with leaves from a quarter to half a yard long, but of the same form as the ordinary oak-leaf. Up and down the ravines we scrambled and roamed, as happy as goats or wild chamois. These ravines, or glens, have no doubt been the beds of some ancient river, now, perhaps, flowing through the bowels of the earth; for this part of the country is intersected by underground rivers, a stream often suddenly appearing, which, after flowing on for a few miles, plunges rapidly into the earth and is lost to sight.

An anecdote is told of two millers who had their mills on two different rivers, thirty miles apart. There had been a long drought, and neither mill had been working; but one day miller No. 1 heard his wheel going round at a tremendous pace, and going to examine it perceived a quantity of water, although there had not been a drop of rain for some time. He went over to communicate his good luck to his neighbor.

"Oh!" exclaimed miller No. 2, "you're gettin' my water unbeknownst, for a cloud burst over us the other night and nearly drowned us all."

It was evident the millers were working the same stream, which ran for thirty miles underground, similar to the lakes in Florida, called sinks (for Americans call everything by gross-sounding names), which suddenly disappear, leaving all the fish stranded. Sometimes the water returns, sometimes not....

Independent of the caves, the scenery around, to a lover of nature, is well worthy of a visit, and for a summer resort is unsurpassed; shady, romantic walks through the woods; a delicious air breathed from the gigantic mouth of the cavern, whence, in the hot months, it blows cool and refreshing; in the cold ones soft and warm; the actual temperature of the cave never varying. The sensations of heat and cold are produced by comparison with the outer air.

It occurred to a medical man some years ago that the _uniform atmosphere_ of this cave might be a specific for consumption.

Possessed with this theory, the doctor had a dozen small houses constructed in the cavern, about a mile or two from its mouth, and to these he conveyed his patients. From the appearance of these places of abode, the only wonder is that the poor invalids did not expire after twenty-four hours of residence in them. They, however, contrived to exist there about three months, most of them being carried out _in extremis_. The houses consisted of a single room, built of the rough stone of the cavern,--which, in this part, bears all the appearance of a stone-quarry,--and without one particle of comfort beyond a boarded floor, the small dwelling being constructed entirely on the model of a lock-up, or "stone-jug." The cells of a modern prison are quite palatial in comparison with them. The darkness is such as might be felt; and it is impossible to realize what darkness actually is until experienced in some place where a ray of sunlight has never penetrated.

From the mouth of the cavern to that part where the doctor's houses were built was a continual, though gradual, descent, and at that spot there was a solid roof of a hundred and fifty feet of earth. The houses--or rather detached stone boxes--were so small that without vitiating the air only one person could remain in them at one time; so that, besides the darkness,--in case of any accident to their lamps,--these poor creatures must have endured utter solitude. Their food was brought from the hotel, two or three miles away, on the hill, and consequently must have been cold and comfortless. They were kept prisoners within their narrow cells, for the rough rocks and stones everywhere abounding rendered a promenade for invalids quite impracticable. The deprivation of sunlight, fresh air, and all the beauties of the earth must have been the direst punishment imaginable. No wonder these poor creatures were carried out one by one to die.

The last one having become so weak that it was deemed unsafe to move him, his friends resolved to stay with him in the cavern till the last. What transpired is now beyond investigation. Whether some effect of light, which in this cavern has a most mysterious and awful appearance, or whether the death-bed was one of terrors, owing to some imp of mischief having laid a plan to "scare" them, as they say in this country, is not known; but they rushed terror-stricken from the cave, and on reaching the hotel fell down insensible. Subsequently they declared they had seen spirits carrying away their friend. Mustering a strong force, the people from _terra firma_, with the guides and plenty of torches, sallied down to the lower and supposed infernal regions. The spirits, however, had fled, leaving nothing but the stiffening corpse of the poor consumptive. This ended all hope of the cavern as a cure for consumption.

The Mammoth Cave is perhaps the most extensively explored cavern known. It extends for nine continuous miles, so that it would be possible to walk fifty miles in and out by different roads. The cavern consists of various large chambers and lofty domes, averaging from twenty to one hundred feet in height. Some of the chambers exactly resemble the tombs of the kings of Egypt, and the narrow tortuous defiles through the rocks are also very like the roads into the Pyramids. Most of these chambers are merely natural excavations in the solid rock. One of the white-domed ceilings is covered with a thick scroll-pattern traced in black, and consists entirely of bats, which take up their winter quarters in these caverns, and fare better in them apparently than the consumptives. It is curious how these sightless creatures, from various parts of the country, find out the caves, so impervious to light and cold, and where, from the noise they make, they seem to have a merry time of it. Not so, however, the visitors passing through this part of the cave; for the bats are apt to fly right in one's face, or stick against one's clothes, and bite furiously at any attempt to dislodge them.

Still farther on there is a vast vault, upward of eighty feet high, formed of gypsum with some sort of crystals embedded in it. When you sit and gaze on it for some time, by the dim light of the lamps, the vault seems to recede into azure space. A bright sparkling veil hangs over it like the milky way, seen dimly between the shelving rocks, which bulge out in round soft layers, of a whitish-gray cast, and look exactly like petrified clouds. By a judicious movement of the light of the lamps a most beautiful phenomenon of cloud-scenery is effected, and by their gradual extinction a Stygian darkness seems to wrap all in perfect horror. This, the "Star Chamber," is one of the finest effects in the Mammoth Cave, and it might be enhanced to the wildest magnificence by an artistic arrangement of variously colored lights. The cave would be a fine place in which to read Dante's Inferno.