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.
[Illustration: ON THE COAST OF FLORIDA
FROM A STEEL PLATE]
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.