been
driven by the advances of civilization, is, taken all in all, unlike any
other part of our country. In climate it is subtropical; in character
of soil it shows a contrast of comparative barrenness and abounding
fertility; and in topography it is a plain, with hardly any perceptible
natural elevations or depressions. The following description, based upon
the notes of my journey to the Big Cypress Swamp, indicates the
character of the country generally. I left Myers, on the Caloosahatchie
River, a small settlement composed principally of cattlemen, one morning
in the month of February. Even in February the sun was so hot that
clothing was a burden. As we started upon our journey, which was to be
for a distance of sixty miles or more, my attention was called to the
fact that the harness of the horse attached to my buggy was without the
breeching. I was told that this part of the harness would not be needed,
so level should we find the country. Our way, soon after leaving the
main street of Myers, entered pine woods. The soil across which we
traveled at first was a dry, dazzling white sand, over which, was
scattered a growth of dwarf palmetto. The pine trees were not near
enough together to shade us from the fierce, sun. This sparseness of
growth, and comparative absence of shade, is one marked characteristic
of Florida's pine woods. Through this thin forest we drove all the day.
The monotonous scenery was unchanged except that at a short distance
from Myers it was broken by swamps and ponds. So far as the appearance
of the country around as indicated, we could not tell whether we were
two miles or twenty from our starting point. Nearly half our way during
the first day lay through water, and yet we were in the midst of what is
called the winter "dry season." The water took the shape here of a swamp
and there of a pond, but where the swamp or the pond began or ended it
was scarcely possible to tell, one passed by almost imperceptible
degrees from dry land to moist and from moist land into pool or marsh.
Generally, however, the swamps were filled with a growth of cypress
trees. These cypress groups were well defined in the pine woods by the
closeness of their growth and the sharpness of the boundary of the
clusters. Usually, too, the cypress swamps were surrounded by rims of
water grasses. Six miles from Myers we crossed a cypress swamp, in which
the water at its greatest depth was from one foot to two feet deep.
A wagon