The Yale expositor., 1895-11-22
AMONG THE CONCHS.
A COMMENTED AND CARE-FREE
PEOPLE.
What Featherly Did, Saw and Heard on
"A Trip Through the Everglade Country
Tells of the Beauties of Biscayne Bay
He Emulates Geo. Washington.

When we commenced this series OF
letters it was our purpose to write to
some extent of all that section of the
of the south which we might visit
| However, we have found this not prac-
ticable. st. Augustine is more or less
known to AN, having been frequently
written up. To write up it in an in
telligent manner would require several
columns Of space. Therefore we have
decided to leave it without much fur
Their mention than was made in the
second letter of this series. 1t Is n
quaint Spanish city of the last three
centuries shaking hands with the mod
ern city of to-day. The hand of the
vandal is at work tearing away these
| landmarks Of our early colonial and
national life to make room for the
modern structures of to-day. Upon old
| Spanish streets from to Is feet wide
we see fire modern buildings arising
on every hand. st. Augustine is the
most beautiful spot, so rendered by
the architect, the builder, the florist
and the gardener, at the same time the
most quaint city on the continent.
We took a trip to Tampa, on the
west coast This section of the coun-
| try is well-known, generally speaking.
All the way from Jacksonville to Tam
pa, 261 miles, a year ago, was pros
porous orange section. To-day it is
desolate waste of dead grange groves,
killed by last winters freezes. Land,
in it's wild state, worth last year $500
| per acre. is not salable to-day at any
price. We passed through one orange
| grove of 1900 acres, worth last year
! $1,000 per acre-now not worth $50.
The tide of emigration in Florida is
| entirely to the east coast, along the
! line Of the canal and East Coast rail-
way, south of Fast Pierce, an Indian
river, and east of the Everglades,
where the frosts did no considerable
| damage. To this section of Florida,
heretofore but little known and gener-
ally supposed, as indicated by the
maps of Florida, to be one vast i'm
penitrable Everglade swamp, we have
| therefore confined, to a large extent,
our letters descriptive of the south.
Even the people of Tennessee and
Georgia know but little of this seceon
| of Uncle Sans domain, and this is as
well applicable to the newspapers as
to the public generally. The informa-
ton furnished the press of Atlanta,
| Chattanooga and Nashville upon this
country by the writer has been eagerly
! grasped and dished up as something
new. Especially was this so of in
| formation as to Dade county, and most
especially as to Biscayne Bay, which
is yet so miles south of railway COM
munication-a section Of country so
far different from any other portion Of
the United States as to cause one to
feel he is in some other country, ruled
over by some foreign power. We shall
never be sorry we visited Biscayne
Bay. We learned much that we never
knew before and thoroughly posted
ourselves in regard to the people and
the country.
There is a class of people living in
the Biscayne Bay section peculiar to
themselves They are called "Conchs,"
and were odiginally from the Bahama
Islards. here only 40 miles distant
| They settled here over one hundred
years ago. but have made no advance
ment. They live in bamboo and palm
stitched houses, are shiftless and lazy
and provide nothing for rainy day.
They have lived from off the land
largely. What 1t has been absolutely
necessary for them to purchase they
| have purchased with starch manufac-
tured from the "compte" root, plant
growing wild in the woods, and eX-
changed for goods either at Havana,
Key West or Nassau. From the wild
casava root they obtained n highly
nutritious article of food. From the
bread fruit they get flour for bread,
| from the compile root their starch,
| from the wild sugar cane their sugar,
from the cabbage palm, their cabbage,
! from the wild coffee their coffee, while
oranges, lemons, lines, bananas, CO.
coanuts and hundred tropical fruits
grow everywhere. The palms furnish
ed hats, while very little clothing was
necessary.
1t is not to be much wondered at
| that where the lines of life are so easy
that a people separated from civiliza-
ton should see fit to be content to live
in so careless, and to us of the north
so shiftless n manner. They certainly
| had nothing to bother them. One Of
the daughters of one Of these families
waited upon our party ut the hotel at
Cocoanut. Grove and told me that she
had never seen any other place, and
that neither of her parents had ever
been away from Biscayne Bay, al
though so years old. The proprietor of
the hotel pointed out to me young
"Conch" who was about 30 years old.
This man had never seen ice until last
winter. He left pail of water out
doors one night in February. the night
of the freeze. In the morning there
was a thin scale over it; thick enough
TO keep the water from running out as
| it was turned sideways. The young
fellow called in the neighbors to see
tae "bewitched" water bucket. But
the witch departed the moment the sun
struck the pail, much to the consterna-
ton of the fellow, who has been the
butt Of the jokes all this summer.
knowing naught of the cares and
wants Of a people of the colder climes,
nor the annoyances of settled COM
munity near to civilization, these ori-
| ginal "Conchs" must have been hap
Nv people. What will become of them
as they become surrounded by popu--
lous community which will robthem OF
natures supply of the wants of life by
| oIoori,,ev I'm tho narrow belt of rich.