Through Florida Swamps and Forests
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 not only apparent 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, canelike 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 I. Jacob on
the dry plains of Padanaram, 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 marines, 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 palmettos 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 spikelets 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
fled 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 forests 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 often 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
palmettos 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 blowing 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 pawn 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 palmettos 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 sun-down.
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——dest” 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, “Men 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.