r field I met the forty-eight of the
people of the Big Cypress Swamp settlement already mentioned. They had
left their homes that they might have a pleasuring for a few weeks
together, "camping out" and making and eating sirup. The cane which had
been grown there was the largest I or my companion, Capt. F. A. Hendry,
of Myers, had ever seen. It was two inches or more in diameter, and, as
we guessed, seventeen feet or more in length. To obtain the sirup the
Indians had constructed two rude mills, the cylinders of which, however,
were so loosely adjusted that full half the juice was lost in the
process of crushing the cane. The juice was caught in various kinds of
iron and tin vessels, kettles, pails, and cans, and after having been,
strained was boiled until the proper consistency was reached.

[Illustration: Fig. 68. Sugar cane crusher.]

At the time we were at the camp quite a quantity of the sirup had been
made. It stood around the boiling place in kettles, large and small, and
in cans bearing the labels of well known Boston and New York packers,
which had been purchased at Myers. Of special interest to me was a
platform near the boiling place, on which lay several deer skins, that
had been taken as nearly whole as possible from the bodies of the
animals, and utilized as holders of the sirup. They were filled with the
sweet stuff, and the ground beneath was well covered by a slow leakage
from them. "Key West Billy" offered me some of the cane juice to drink.
It was clean looking and served in a silver gold lined cup of spotless
brilliancy. It made a welcome and delicious drink. I tasted some of the
sirup also, eating it Indian fashion, i.e., I pared some of their small
boiled wild potatoes and, dipping them into the sweet liquid, ate them.
The potato itself tastes somewhat like a boiled chestnut.

The sugar cane mill was a poor imitation of a machine the Indians had
seen among the whites. Its cylinders were made of live oak; the driving
cogs were cut from a much harder wood, the mastic, I was told; and these
were so loosely set into the cylinders that I could take them out with
thumb and forefinger. (Fig. 68.)

It is not necessary to speak in particular of the culture of sweet
potatoes, beans, melons, &c. At best it is very primitive. It is,
however, deserving of mention that the Seminole have around their houses
at least a thousand banana plants. When it is remembered that a hundred
bananas are not an overlarge