Cempoala

“ Very early next morning Cortes sent six of the Indians to the caciques of Cempoala to say that we were approaching. We marched in best order, cannon and all arms ready for use and every man on guard. Not more than three miles from the town twenty Indians met us bearing cones of roses of a most delicious scent and deep red color, and these they gave to Cortes and those of us who were on horseback, adding that their cacique awaited us, but he was so stout he could not himself come to meet us. ”

“ The chief of Cempoalla sent his ally abundance of provisions for the journey, with two hundred porters and four hundred warriors. It was the rainy season, and all nature was rioting in a luxuriance of growth known only in this high tide of a tropical year. Field and forest were teeming with life. ”

“ About ten miles from Kissimmee, is a cypress swamp—it is an aquatic jungle full of fallen trees, brush, vines and tangled undergrowth, all darkened by the dense shadows of the tall cypress trees, and full of moccasins and alligators. Running through the swamp is a chain of islands. Here is a field for sportsmen, and here live unmolested a whole colony of the bruin family. Hunters hear their growls, and numerous fresh tracks show where the night marauders have entered the hommock, where they feast on wild honey, huckleberries, the cabbage of the palmetto and the wild orange. ”

“ The 21st we followed them to the island of Chepillo, directly opposite the mouth of the river Chepo, or Cheapo, in the bay of Panama, about seven leagues from the city of Panama, and one league from the continent. This is a pleasant island, about two miles long, and as much in breadth, low on the north side, but rising by a gentle ascent to the south. The soil is very good, and produces in the low grounds great store of fine fruits, as plantains, mammees, sapotas, sapadillos, avogato pears, star-apples, and others. ”

“ San Fernando, Trinidad
The ceiba on the wide savannah has endless room in which to spread. It is perfect in form, like a mammoth gray and green umbrella, and reaches out its immense branches toward every side in perfect symmetry. And such branches! They alone are as large as our forest oaks, and they throw themselves out from the trunk horizontally, in stupendous strength. Its foliage is rather thin; the power of the tree seems to be spent in trunk and branch. Its bark is like an elephant’s hide, and its trunk has a strange way of buttressing out its side in huge wings. ”

“ He does not change his methods of living, as do other races, but, wherever he goes, he carries from pole to equator the customs and habits of his own country. So he plays golf and cricket and polo in Trinidad, when, at its mildest, the heat is about equal to our August.
It is on this savannah that we have our first good opportunity of viewing the mighty ceiba tree near at hand. You remember it was a great ceiba to which Columbus made fast his ships on the bank of the Ozama River in Santo Domingo? The ceiba may not be the largest tree in the tropics. ”

“ Two genera, Cepola and Acanthocepola, with 10 species, from the Mediterranean and North-Eastern Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific. The Band-Fish (Cepola rubescens) , which is common in the Mediterranean, is sometimes found on the British coasts; it grows to a foot and a half in length, and is remarkable for its bright red colour.
Fam. 14. Hoplognathidae.—Characters of Serranidae, but teeth fused to form a beak as in Tetrodon ”

“ The mahogany boats, however, are rather heavy, while the cedar is liable to split in what is called “beaching.” I have seen dories hollowed from a single trunk of the ceiba, in which a tall man might comfortably lie at length across the bottom, and which were capable of carrying fifty persons.
But the ceibas of our encampment supported, besides their own verdure, a mass of lianes or climbers, of many varieties, as also, numerous parasitic plants, and among them the wild-pine or rain-plant, which served us a most useful purpose. ”

“ An experienced traveler in the low latitudes is apt to anticipate the probabilities when starting forth on a new tropical route, but one must behold in order to properly understand the nature of Ceylon forest scenery. The Colombo and Galle road forms an almost continuous avenue through overarching cocoanut palms, with frequent glimpses of the Indian Ocean on one side and of fresh-water ponds and small lakes on the other, the latter all alive with aquatic birds, such as water-pheasants, plovers, teal, sandlarks, and the like. ”

“ The face of the country, skirting on the seaboard, from Cape Hatteras hither, is low, level, and sandy. This feature prevails southward to near Cape Florida; when the rock-bound shore, the rudiments of which begin with the coquina formation opposite the city, again is made the barrier against the encroachments of the sea, and continues until it is broken up among the keys of the Florida archipelago.
The country around the city, is a plain of sandy shell soil, termed “pine barren.” ”

“ Of the 300,000 Americans found when Columbus landed on these wild and unexplored shores, the Florida Seminoles are the only remnant left who live the old, primitive life and practice the ceremonies of their royal, barbaric ancestors.
We see the palmetto thatched wigwams glistening in the red lights from the camp fire; tall trees are silhouetted against the sky, and we see the little children [205] playing backward and forward, their little, brown legs twinkling through the shadows cast by the lurid flames. ”

“ Two of the Floridan negroes rowed us up the river. Even at some distance from the mouth, sting-rays and jelly-fish were floating about. As we rowed upwards, the banks were overhung with the densest vegetation. There were mahogany trees with their curious lop-sided leaves, the copal-plant with its green egg-like fruit, from which copal oozes when it is cut, like opium from a poppy-head, palms with clusters of oily nuts, palmettos, and guavas. ”

“ On the larger islands of this tropical swamp are found the fertile hommocks, the home of the Seminole Indians. Approaching such a home one sees marks of labor; a clearing is made, the wigwams built, sugar cane, sweet potatoes and squash are growing. Chickens and pigs run about and an air of contentment pervades all. ”

“ The coastal lands are low, monotonously level, and often marshy. The grassy Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp cover a large portion of the peninsula south of Lake Okeechobee, and there are large areas of swampland in the northern part, especially along the lower course of the Apalachicola River, and west of Saint Mary's River where the Okefinokee Swamp extends just south of the Georgia State line. ”

“ The other open port, Cebu, on the eastern coast of the island of the same name, is a well-built town, and has a population of about 13,000. From this point the bulk of the hemp for export comes.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ISLANDS.
It is impossible to speak of the other islands in detail. Seven of the group average larger than the State of New Jersey; Luzon is as extensive as Ohio, Mindanao equals Indiana; and, as we have stated before, about four hundred of them are inhabitable, and, like Java, Borneo, and the Spice Islands, all are rich in natural resources. ”

“ In the rich soil of the valley flourished luxuriantly the noble cabbage-palm—the prince of the Jamaica forest—while, by its side, claiming admiration for the massive grandeur of its form, stood the patriarch of West-Indian trees—the grand ceiba; the hoary Spanish moss that drooped from its spreading branches forming an appropriate beard for this venerable giant.
Every tree had its parasites—not a single species, but in hundreds, and of as many grotesque shapes; some twining around the trunks and boughs like huge snakes or cables—some seated upon the limbs or in the forking of the branches ”

“ Another fish they also caught in the creek, called coemma-coemma, which is from one to three feet long, exceedingly sweet, but not near so delicious as the jackee, or warappa, which two last the negroes generally smoak-dry or barbacue, and which I was glad to eat without either bread or salt. The barbacuing consists in laying the fish upon twigs of wood above the fire, where, by the smoak, they dry to a consistency that gives them no disagreeable taste, and will preserve them for several weeks together: thus prepared, they require no further dressing. ”

“ Every fish of the mullet-kind lives on sea-weed and sand. The cephalus, called by some the 'chelon', keeps near in to the shore, the peraeas keeps out at a distance from it, and feeds on a mucous substance exuding from itself, and consequently is always in a starved condition. The cephalus lives in mud, and is in consequence heavy and slimy; it never feeds on any other fish. As it lives in mud, it has every now and then to make a leap upwards out of the mud so as to wash the slime from off its body. ”

“ In most of the other shell heaps which we examined, bones of the nutria (Myopotamus coypu) and of the otter (Lutra felina) were observed.
To the westward of our anchorage (i.e., in the large island of Madre de Dios) was a long narrow inlet, partly overhung with trees, which communicated by a shallow bar with a brackish lagoon of about thirty acres in extent. At low water there was only about three feet of water on the bar, and we could then see that the bottom was covered with huge white sessile barnacles (the "picos" of the Chilians) , growing closely together. ”

“ This vast region contains about 4,000 square miles of marsh lands and tropical forests, interlaced with thick clustering vines and is the greatest area of unexplored country in the United States.
The accounts of the interior of the mysterious swamp is to be found only in dim tradition or Indian legends.
However fast the door of the swamp may be locked, it opens quickly enough to whomsoever carries the key. The Seminole is the true key-bearer and with moccasined foot he enters when and where he will. ”

“ Many wonderful and incredible stories are told by sailors of the bulk and strength of this fish; it is however certain that it is frequently caught of 150 lbs. weight, on the coast of Chile, and the flesh is esteemed a great delicacy. The sea around Barbados is frequented by a species of the order Cephalopoda, which is used as an article of food by the lower classes of the inhabitants, namely the bastard cuttle-fish, or calmar, (Loligo sagitatta, Lam.) ”

“ The sun was just tipping with gold the mossy crests of a grove of giant ceibas, when the boys rounded a bend to come upon the first ledge of rocks for two days. A low, grassy promontory invited the eyes searching for camping-ground. ”

“ Here the Chemung makes a great bend, flowing in more than half a circle; and there are little hills to the north, around which we crept, hearing always the stirring and movements of men ahead of us, and utterly unable to comprehend what they were so busily about.
Just beyond the island another and larger creek enters the river; and here, no longer daring to follow the Seneca trail, we turned southwest, slinking across the river flats, through the high Indian grass, until we came to a hardwood ridge, from whence some of these sounds proceeded. ”

“ Wide tracts of cypress swamp separate the everglades from the Gulf of Mexico, while in Southern Florida they approach within a few miles of the Atlantic Coast, being separated by an intervening dyke of coral, crossed by frequent streams of rapid current, for the everglades are far from being stagnant swamps. ”

“ Higher, rougher, and steeper grew the trail, often in a zigzag up some precipitous gorge. A tiny, scattering Indian village came in sight, Huaylata, perched on a high, rolling part of this Andean pass. Its mud huts were smaller, grimier, and drearier, if possible, than those that we had passed on the great plateau. A few 130 Aymarás appeared and tried to sell us cebada, or barley, for the mules; an old woman, squatting on the ground, weaving a poncho on her log loom, stopped long enough to look over our cavalcade curiously out of her bleared eyes red with smoke. ”

“ MANY writers who come to Florida copy an abstract of the most interesting portions contained in the guide-books, besides what they can hear, afterward filling up the interstices from their imaginations. We look to the old Spaniards for information, but, alas! they are like the swamp cypress which the gray moss has gathered over until its vitality has been absorbed—age has taken away their vigor. ”

“ The Uranus was not to stop long, and most of the through passengers returned early to the steamer to enjoy a view tempered by rather more breeze and less smell than that which the narrow streets afforded. Cebu, from the deck, was worthy of a sonnet; the white houses and church spires were set off against the dark-green background of mountains, and as the sun got lower the place did not have the broiled-alive aspect that it bore during the middle of the day. ”

“ My notions of the Cephalopoda, derived from figures of the various species in books, were anything but agreeable. I thought of them as hideous, repulsive, fierce, atrocious creatures, hated and feared whenever seen. But an acquaintance with the pretty Sepiola vulgaris has not a little modified these ideas; and its beauty, sprightliness, and curious habits have made it quite a favourite pet among the denizens of my Aquarium. ”

“ From the deck of a passenger steamer it is quite interesting to watch the peculiar proceedings of these dangerous creatures, and many conjectures are exchanged as to what would happen in the event of any one of the watchers falling overboard. On the banks of the river, cedar groves are frequently seen. Florida supplies the world with the wood required for lead pencils, and the inroads made into her cedar forests for this purpose threaten to eventually rob the State of one of its most unique features. ”