The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1884-03-19
On Indian River---Camp Life.

He had left the ''Sallie" in the broad river
at anchor, Tom pulled him through the
narrow winding creeks formed by island
after island barely above the water Gov
cred by mangroves. These were matters
Of wonder to me for long time after [
first saw them. Think of whole forests
miles and miles along the river shore III
which you cannot tell where one tree be
gins and another ends. For the parent
! trunk sends out a horizontal branch; next
spring at the end of this, on the under
side forms knot which soon develops in
to the exact likeness of a cigar; nearer
and nearer to the ground this pushes
itself; at last the cigar touches the soil,
takes root and begins to send support to
the parent branch. In the meantime this
has been extending itself straight out,
another root is sent downward: the orig
inal trunk has been doing this in all di-
rections and the nucleus Of a mangrove
forest is formed, which seems to be one
tree. Wherever there is salt water, South
Florida is being formed in this way. The
coral insects build a reef; this catches
sea-weed from the Gulf stream. which in
turn is covered with sand, then a, man
grove swamp with it's fine roots builds up
from drift of all kinds soil which IS
seon too high and rich for the first occu-
pants; these die and are succeeded by
palmettoes and various coarse grasses,
Among these swamps the mosquitoes are
so thick that l have often thought that
their bodies helped considerably to build
up a habitatiOn for higher races. How
ever we cared little for them as we stood
on the sand-banks up to our knees in
water and caught fish for the "old mans
breakfast. For his home was ON the Ba-
mana river and he had joined us for q
weeks diet on camp fare.
We soon had cavalho, drum. mullet,
sea-trout and a small green turtle. Some
we caught with the rod, the mullet with
cast-net, and one of us found the turtle
trying to disentangle himself from q maze
of mangrOve roots. In the meantime our
guest and myself had speared a white
shark eight feet long and had tired our
selves into a keen appetite before killing
him. Several Of the ugly sea tigers swan
excitedly about while their companion
was in his death struggle, and Just enough
care was necessary to render the work
exciting, for some Of them We're larger
than our boat and any of the crowd
might have crushed onr frail shell with a
blow Of his tail. Besides in killing a
shark I never felt guilty Of cruelty.
We left his carcass to furnish breakfast
for his brothers, took up our fellows with
their fish. stopped at a convenient place
for a few dozen oysters and went to
camp
The turtle was left for dinner, but we
had fish-chowder of cavalhO, roasted
oysters on both shells, vension steak,
baked trout, mulIet fried in bear fat and
coffee Then we read our letters and pa
pers, for none Of US had been to the post
Office in two months. News from the
outside world with our pipes for accom-
paniment was enough for us-not so the
Captain. Before we had finished he had
us all in the boat again to get milk CO.
coanut for desert at dinner For when
these are half-grown, and the whole is
like soft butter, rich, cream-hke in its
natural shell, to us, yearning for milk
with longing to which the condensed
article only added strength, it was more
than delicious. If the coc0anut palm
had the decency to put forth branches
for climbers. not a nut would ever ripen
in reach of a campfire So all eagerness.
the Captain deposited his fat corporosity
in our boat and insisted on paying q visit
to the tree he remembered so well. We
all laughed as he looked longingly up the
twenty feet of smooth trunk which was
to him a bridge of horrors. Spike"
said he authoritatively, for that also was
one of my innumerable names, ,'climb
up and cut off half a dozen nuts" MY
Lord" said [ with a low bow. 4 have
eaten altogether too much for such a
feat" In vain he dweIt on the delicious
qualities of the young fruit, the imp of
perverse possessed US all, and we calmly
lit our pipes and waited to see what he
would DO
He raved andpaughed, swore some. and
then determined to show us what he
could accomplish without Us. He iointed
his rod and fastened his clasp knife to it
by binding the handle to one portion with
strings from the boat. He could not use
the whole length, for the upper end was
not stout enough. We watched him care
fully, for his soft whistle told us that he
had a plan which he was certain
would succeed. After he was satisfied
with the fastening Of rod and knife. he
got small axe from the boat and went
into the thicket. We gravely smoked
on as we heard him chopping vigorously.
but saw his plan as he stumbled back to
us with stout pole on his shoulder.
From This he had emf Tho I,.,,,yl,. =;