Everglades

“ The appearance presented upon entering the Everglades is that of an immense prairie, stretching farther than the eye can reach, covered by thick saw-grass, rising six feet above the surface of the water, which it conceals—the monotony varied by numerous snake-like channels and verdant islands, scattered few and far between—the average depth of water over the whole extent being from two to four feet. ”

“ There is none of the stateliness that space alone can give, but the shrubs and vines crowd lovingly together, till one might well wonder if Adam and Eve did not plant something of this sort just beyond the flash of that flaming sword and perhaps learn to love the home they had found better than the Eden they had lost.
You may, if you will, go westward still from this ridge and get into another land of enchantment, the borderland of the Everglades. Here a road winds from one saw-grass island to another across Clearwater Lake. ”

“ We can go through the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee, out through the canal and down the Caloosahatchee, but the Everglades will be much the same as we have seen, only more and worse saw-grass and so harder work. If we go to the east we will pretty soon come out at the coast which we want to avoid. I think we had better strike across to the prairies and the border land between the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp. Bear, deer, panther and wild turkey are to be found in that country, and we won't have to hurry so much to get through in the time we talked of for the trip. ”

“ As you are aware, no general survey of Florida has yet been made; there exist no maps of the Everglades south of Okeechobee; even Little Sprite Lake is but a vague blot on our maps. We know, of course, that south of the eleven thousand square [112] miles of fresh water which is called Lake Okeechobee the Everglades form a vast, delta-like projection of thousands and thousands of square miles. Darkest Africa is no longer a mystery; but the Everglades to-day remain the sombre secret of our continent. ”

“ She was far too well-bred to speak any language but English before her new friends.
“Yes; this is a small sized heaven,” agreed Bab. “A kind of oasis in a desert, for over there are the Everglades.”
“And what are the Everglades?” inquired the countess.
“The guide-book says they are trackless jungle,” explained Bab. “They are full of wild animals; wild cats, and panthers, and deer. They have poisonous snakes in them, too. Very few white men ever venture in the Everglades, but the Indians have trails through them. They often kill deer in the jungle and sell them at the hotel.” ”

“ Late the previous afternoon the party, traveling in two wagons, had reached Henry Tremaine’s Florida place at the head of Lake Okeechobee, an inland body of water, forty miles long and thirty broad, which lay at the northern extremity of the famous Florida Everglades.
The Everglades is a name given to a broad section of country whose duplicate cannot be found elsewhere in the world. It is a huge swamp district, dotted thickly with islands ranging in size from half an acre to islands many hundreds of acres in extent. ”

“ Then slowly we passed on and sat by the fort, leaning our backs against it; in meditation looking across the prairie that had become so changed a place to us.
The night grew sweet with the purity of untouched wilderness as, shoulder to shoulder, we sat talking in low tones of Smilax and Echochee. She had wondered about them no few times that day, and now I, too, felt some concern. Yet the Everglades lay far eastward and, for any reason giving up Big Cove, I knew he would plunge as deeply into it as his pursuers dared follow. ”

“ The air of this southern region is not only languorous but, in the piney districts particularly, is balsamic, and hence thousands of consumptives go to Florida for relief which they cannot find elsewhere. The Everglades are not what they were formerly pictured to be before exploration revealed that instead of impenetrable swamps they are sections of very thickly timbered lands, whose only drawback are spiney-palmettos, which render travel through them very laborious. ”

“ The Indian name of the Everglades, I am told, signifies Grass-water, a term which well expresses its appearance. It is a vast lake, broader by thousands of acres in a wet than in a dry season, and so shallow that the grass everywhere grows from the bottom and overtops its surface The bottom is of hard sand, so firm that it can be forded almost everywhere on horseback, and here and there are deep channels which the traveller crosses by swimming his horse. ”

“ The name Everglades is applied to a vast swamp containing a multitude of shallow lakes studded with numerous188 islands. The region embraces most of the southern part of Florida. The water of the lakes, of which Lake Okechobee is the largest, varies in depth from a few inches to ten feet. The region itself has an area six times that of the State of Rhode Island, and on account of the difficulty in traversing it is but imperfectly known. Countless winding intricate water channels extend in every direction. ”

“ The prevailing idea that the Everglades are unhealthy is about as far as it is possible to get from the truth. So far as the few expeditions that have penetrated the great mystery have reported, the water is fine and the air healthful. The saw-grass, the Seminoles and the snakes—rattlers and cotton-mouth moccasins—are the worst enemies the explorer ordinarily encounters, with an occasional panther. ”

“ Through the everlasting Everglades, with their fern and frond and sorrowful, hoary cypress, Red Roane and I went north. Onward with laughter. What joy lay in our hearts! We sang many songs.
Fern and flower embracing in fecundity. Grasses thick with sap. Blossoms wilting at a touch. Mire teeming with creeping life. Above all, the gay sun. Beneath all, the coiling serpent eyes and the opened fangs. ”

“ On approaching the lake it terminates in thick mangrove bushes, uninhabitable for Indians. Between the Caloosahatchee the country is wet pine barren, with occasionally dry islands. On the south it is bounded by the Everglades, through which the Indians pass in canoes to the great cooutie-grounds on the Atlantic, south of the Miami River. This is a belt from five to eight miles in width and twenty miles long. To travel directly through the swamp to the Everglades from Fort Keas, which is upon the north margin, the distance is about thirty miles. ”

“ The first white man to enter the region was Escalente de Fontenada, a Spanish captive of an Indian chief, who named the lake Laguno del Espiritu Santo and the islands Cayos del Espiritu Santo. Between 1841 and 1856 various United States military forces penetrated the Everglades for the purpose of attacking and driving out the Seminoles, who took refuge here. ”

“ Not a little had young Halstead read of these outlaws of the Everglades. Since reaching Florida he had heard much more of them. In these vast, desolate stretches of swamp land there are a multitude of trackless ways. Once a criminal, fleeing from justice, gets two or three miles into the Everglades, he is almost certain to remain a free man as long as he stays there. In all these vast reaches of swamp and dark waters, with every advantage in favor of the hiding criminal, the officer of the law, if he pursues, has a very little chance of ever finding his quarry. ”

“ The swamp explorers found themselves upon a comparatively high piece of ground, which was surrounded by the marsh lands that composed the greater portion of the vast Everglades.
It was the first time they had set eyes upon the huge trees and tangled undergrowth of the outside world in two whole years, and, dreary as their surroundings were, they thought it the most beautiful sight they had ever witnessed.
Those who had reached the earth’s surface were Dick Vincey, Leo Malvern, Prof. Remington Easy, Martin Haypole, Andrew Jones, Reginald Lacy and Philander Owens. ”

“ Exploration was made almost impossible by a saw-toothed grass which grew throughout the Everglades and extended several feet above the water, so that the person who tried to force his way through it would cut everything to shreds up to and including his eyebrows. People talked for years of draining the Everglades ”

“ But unlike the populous New England state, the only human inhabitants of the Everglades are a few hundred Indians who thread its lonely water-paths in primitive dugout canoes.
Evidently the plane’s pilot did not intend to cross the Everglades. They were still heading north, but the amphibian’s nose had been swung to starboard. By the time they left the Ten Thousand Isles, Bill realized that they were traveling a point or two east of north. Could it be that they were making for those dark, watery woodlands known as the Big Cypress? ”

“ The outlaw got in the way of spending his evenings with the young explorers and Ned pumped him dry of his knowledge of the Everglades, the Big Cypress and the lesser swamps of South Florida. He made charts from lines traced in the dirt to show rivers, bays, prairie land and swamps. Ned learned of hidden creeks that connected waters thought to be completely separated by land and of others that could be connected by a short carry. ”

“ The upper part of this region is occupied by the extensive but shallow waters of Lake Okeechobee, which merges insensibly into the everglades south and east, the Seminoles calling this grass-grown and spongy region, which is still the abode of some remnants of the tribe, Pa-ha-yo-kee, meaning "much grass in water." These everglades are penetrated in all directions by tortuous water channels of slight depth; and at frequent intervals in the whole district there are wooded islands possessing fertile soils and covered with dense tropical vegetation. ”

“ The voices of frogs and toads during the breeding season, however, are part of the Everglades atmosphere. You will enjoy the nocturnal serenade at egg-laying time—and it is quite possible to learn to identify species by their songs, which are as distinctive as those of birds. ”

“ Now, you six men can be towed by us in another boat when we go into the Everglades. The presence of such a party, armed, will be enough to keep any friends of the prisoners that may be [172] lurking in the big swamp country from showing us any hostile attentions.”
The evening was spent with some further accounts of Tom’s trip into the Everglades. When it came time to retire it was decided to let the six Florida men stand guard over the bungalow, one at a time, through the night. ”

“ He should find plenty of cocoanuts, and would never need to have a fever if he would eat daily of the wild oranges which abound. If one only could go in spirit, and not in flesh, one would like to follow him into the everglades. The tropical forests of Florida contain visions and wonders of growth and glory never yet revealed to the eye of the common traveller, and which he who sees must risk much to explore. Our best wishes go with our enthusiast. May he live to tell us what he sees! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the drowned habitats of Everglades it is not surprising to find water-bound mammals such as the porpoise; or fish-eating amphibious mammals such as the otter; or even land mammals, such as the raccoon, that characteristically feed upon aquatic life. But to see mammals that one ordinarily does not associate with water behaving as though they were born to it is another matter. The white-tailed deer is an example. It is so much a part of this watery environment that you will most likely observe it far out in the glades, feeding upon aquatic plants or bounding over the marsh. ”

“ Dick in the Everglades is a true story. All that imagination had to do with it was to find names for the boys and arrange a sequence of events. Other characters, white and Indian, appear under names similar to, or identical with their own. Any old alligator hunter, familiar with the swamps and the Ten Thousand Islands, can follow the course of the explorers from the text of the story. It would be possible for two fearless boys, imbued with a love of Nature and the wilderness, to repeat, incident by incident, the feats of the explorers in the identical places mentioned in the story. ”

“ But though we Northern visitors may sometimes envy our Southern brethren their gift of happy insouciance, it is not for our possessing. We were born under another star. Our lack is the precise opposite of theirs; even in our vacation hours we have seldom time to sit still.
So it happened that on a sultry, dog-day morning, with a south wind blowing, the sky partly clouded,—a comfort to the eyes,—the professor and the bird-gazer, after an early breakfast, set forth upon a reconnoissance of the Everglades. ”

“ A recent experience told by an aviator belonging to one of Uncle Sam’s flying squadrons and authorized by the War Department at Washington, graphically pictures a modern view of the Everglades, and illustrates, too, that the same hospitality extended by the Red Man to the bewildered Spaniards, as they landed on these wild and unexplored shores four centuries ago, may be found in the heart of the jungle and marsh wilderness of the Seminole camps today. ”

“ More than 50 species of reptiles, including 26 species of snakes and 16 species of turtles, have been found in Everglades National Park. The reptiles include, of course, the alligator, which is the symbol of the Everglades. Less conspicuous than the reptiles are the 18 species of amphibians that live here. Many are nocturnal. ”