Morning journal and courier., 1885-07-01

ing lslan nds-Fort GRrdner-Tommy Tiger-Tail- Hermit Driggs - Wood- chOpping Girls-Bfg Fishing.
 KIssrMMEK CITY, Fla, June 20. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 My last letter left our Okeechobee party of three slumbering peacefully on the upper deck of the Rosalie, while millions of frogs on all sides chirruped lullaby for us, and myriads of insectivora also helped to make the night weirdly melodious. Early the next morning we were up, having washed ourselves in water basins placed on chairs, and arranged our dishevelled locks before mirrors attached to the slender posts that supported the roof Everything in the way of toilet facilities was improvised, but that fact only lent smack of romance to the oo- casion.
 The Rosalie backed out of the canal and retraced small portion of the journey across Lake Cypress. Ploughing her way through wealth Of honnets, water lettuces, yellow pond lilies and other aquatic plants, she found the mouth of the lake and pre- oeeded on her way down the torturous Kis- simmee to Lake Hatcheneha, distance of seven miles, shortened from eleven by the Okeechobee company. We could see st fre- quent intervals places where sharp bends had been cut off where the river doubled on it. self. The stream was barely wide enough to admit of two boats passing. It was novel experience even to me, veteran globe-trot- ter Great clumsy birds were wading in the swamp or flying lazily over the land with slow laborious fappings of their wings. There were all kinds of cranes and herons, wild HJ1oly tha vChit A the curI6W. the roseate spoonbill, the purple galino, the grossbeck snipe and many other den1zens ot the air that I did not recognize. The golden famingo is getting scarce now they say. Al sunset on the evening previous we had fired rife out over the land to see the birds, especially the curlews, rise. The effect was wonderful. For the time being the land scape would be effeetually screened from view. It was as if sudden heavy fall of snow had concealed the whole earth from our dazed northern eyes, for the curlews were spotlessly white. Anon, also, we would pass some dead gaunt-looking tree, upon which score of hungry, sluggish-looking buzzards were perched. Alligators were very numer- ous and will doubtless continue so, although we took occasion to reduce the ranks some what The orthodox way for alligator to die is for him to flop over on his back when shot, throw up his legs and wiggle his toes. That all alligators do not observe this for mula is either because they are not m0rtally wounded or because they are shot when in such position that they have time to slide into the water. We shot one or two when they were trotting along on the sandy bank of the canal and had no chance but to yield l gracefully to the inevitable. It is marvellous how rapidly alligator can run on the ground when he gets thoroughly scared. We made it point to try and hit in the eyes or in the back of the neck. The largest one we saw was a wary old fellow who summing himself on piece of driftwood in g little cove at certain place. We shot at him from long range both going and returning; but owing to the distance failed to hit It was not considered safe to wait until the steamer had approached nearer. l suppose he must have measured about fifteen feet. Rarely rattlesnake or moccasin reminded us that the vicinity not altogether desti- tute of such reptiles.
 In some places the ground was high and dry, while again it would be covered by foot or two of water. But even in the latter event I noticed herds of cows wading over it and browsing-a state of things impossible a couple of years ago. Whenever l speak of sand as bordering river or canal of course have reference to the sand which is dug up out of the channel of the stream. But was most interested in the floating | islands As in the St. Johns, Ocklawaha and other rivers, there were tons and tons of water lettuces and other floating plants drift ing on down doward Lake Okeechobee. As they progressed they. would often become at tached to each other or some floating object and form floating islands, which as they drift hither and thither are constantly chan ging the beds of the rivers and the geogra-
 phy of the country in other respects. Among the masses of swamp-weed noticed for the
 first time the double yellow water-ily grow
 ing in it's native state. The great waxen
 chalices rose foot or two from the water in-
 stead of resting upon the surface.
 Occasionally our meditations were inter rupted by very foul odor, which would be explained when we heard the cook say to the fireman, F'Nother dead gator round here l
 suspect" Sometimes the channel would be
 bordered by reeds almost as tall as the boat
 upon which we were riding, which were filled with rayriads of blackbirds' nests. The
 steamer was stopped and we cut some of the reeds bearing nests to take home as cur1osl- ties, filling the nests with an assortment of pretty eggs.
 Emerging into Lake Hatcheneha we had a good opportunity to understand further the modus operandi of cutting canal. From the top of a lone cypress tree in the lake futtered flag. Looking back over the fiat land we could see the towering outlines of the dredge at the terminus of the canal where we had camped the previous night. l Immediately in front of the dredge on 8 line l between it and the lake flag another flag pro ! jected above the sawgrass, furnishing point along which the dredgemen could sight in | fixing the alignment of the canal. Then men would go ahead of the dredge and saw 4 | channel through the bag.
 | Crossing Lake Hatcheneha we emerged by
 the Kissimmee and followed it to Lake Kis- l simmee, distance of five miles, through es- l sentially the same sort of country already de- scribed. Kissimmee lake proved to be quite
 as large as Lake Tohopekaliga-s somewhat l longer, indeed. At the north end where we l entered the ground was beautifully high and 1 dry, and we picked out several splendid sites ] for future hotels. The beach appeared to be sandy and we'll adapted to bathing-a pas l time quite neglected in the established re- l sorts of Florida.
 Before entering the lake we stopped off for an hours ramble at what is called Fort Gard ! ner There are no remains to-day of the stockade there which was dignifed by the l name of fort during the Indian war. A nos 1 ble grove of live oaks bearded with moss
 that often dragged on the ground made the ! place as inviting & one as l have struck in l the Gopher State; while underfoot was 8 turf equal to that on the best lawn in your l own city, which is saying good deal for Florida Here and there we would run across the skeleton of an alligator bleaching l upon the ground Before we embarked who should appear but real live Indian with a 1 youth about twenty years of age and pap 1 poose in deep, narrow canoe. The trio | landed and approached us with a grunt and
 an expressive gesture the part of ! the man indicative of his desire to molsten his gastrenomical apparatus. Whenever an
 Indian is met down here in South Florida, it
 is customary to present him with good
 potation of undiluted whiskey. Being a
 temperance crowd we had none of the water
 of life with us, and Mir Indian had to con-
 tent himself with can of preserves, which
 we offered knowing that he would not eat
 any of it, but in order to express our good
 will And was it not meet that we should
 pay tribute to Tommy Tiger-Tail, one of
 ] the sub-chiefs of the noble red men of Flor
 idaq For the man was no less parsonage
 than Tommy Tiger-Tail, and the youth was
 his son. There is general organization of
 the few remaining Indians in South Florida,
 at the head of which is Tallahassee. Then
 there are sub-chiefs who preside over the
 fragmentary tribes. Among these sub-
 chiefs, who usually know more
 l or less of English, are Tallahassee, jr., Tommy , | Tiger-Tail, Bill Buster, and Billy Ham.
 Tommy's habiliments could hardly be de-
 scribed as regal His costume would be
 described as old and ragged, if there had
 been enough of it to be worthy of character
 ization. I shook hands with the sleepy look
 ing chieftain, after the fashion of President Arthur when he visited these inland lakes oi
 the Upper Kissimmee valley. I cannot say
 | c1aanad the sAme hand that was warmed by