or child spared. In 1586 St. Augustine was burned by Sir Francis
Drake, and a century later it was plundered by English buccaneers. Still
later, frequent contests were waged between the English colonies and the
Spanish in Florida.

Previous to the acquisition of Florida by the United States hostile
Indians, together with fugitive whites and renegade negroes who had
joined them, made many raids upon the settlements in Georgia, robbing
and burning plantations, murdering the whites, and carrying off the
slaves. Retaliation to a certain extent was meted out to the
blood-thirsty savages until Spain was glad to cede the peninsula to the
United States in 1819 for five million dollars. Thereby she ridded
herself of her troublesome proteges. The Indian raids still continued
after the acquisition, and the United States Government therefore sent
troops into Florida to punish the treacherous savages, who gradually
retreated southward until they reached the Everglades. There they made
their final stand.

In these almost inaccessible sinuous water passages and the dense island
vegetation for a long time the Indians baffled our ablest military
officers. A seven years' contest followed which cost the United States
fifteen hundred men and nearly twenty million dollars.

[Illustration: Group of Seminole Indians in the Everglades of Florida]

After much negotiation and no end of trouble the Indians--they were the
Seminoles--ceded their lands to the United States on the promise of an
annuity of twenty-five thousand dollars and suitable lands in the Indian
Territory. About four thousand of the Seminoles were then removed to
their new homes; a small remnant refusing to emigrate were left behind.

The name Everglades is applied to a vast swamp containing a multitude of
shallow lakes studded with numerous 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. Many of these are filled with tall sawgrass which,
growing from the bottom, greatly impedes the passage even of small
boats. The average elevation of the Everglades above sea level is
scarcely twenty feet. The water is both clear and wholesome, bu