darkness. It was the pine island we were seeking, the
"Buck Pens."

On our journey that day we had crossed a stream, so called, the
Ak-ho-lo-wa-koo-tci. So level is the country, however, and so sluggish
the flow of water there that this river, where we crossed it, was more
like a swamp than a stream. Indeed, in Southern Florida the streams,
for a long distance from what would be called their sources, are more a
succession of swamps than well defined currents confined to channels by
banks. They have no real shores until they are well on their way towards
the ocean.

Beyond the point I reached, on the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp, lie
the Everglades proper, a wide district with, only deeper water and
better defined islands than those which mark the "Bad Country" and the
"Devil's Garden" I had entered.

The description I have given refers to that part of the State of Florida
lying south of the Caloosahatchee River. It is in this watery prairie
and Everglade region that we find the immediate environment of most of
the Seminole Indians. Of the surroundings of the Seminole north of the
Caloosahatchee there is but little to say in modification of what has
already been said. Near the Fish Eating Creek settlement there is a
somewhat drier prairie land than that which I have just described. The
range of barren sand hills which extends from the north along the middle
of Florida to the headwaters of the Kissimmee River ends at Cat Fish
Lake. Excepting these modifications, the topography of the whole Indian
country of Florida is substantially the same as that which we traversed
on the way from Myers into the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades.

Over this wide and seeming level of land and water, as I have said,
there is a subtropical climate. I visited the Seminole in midwinter;
yet, for all that my northern senses could discover, we were in the
midst of summer. The few deciduous trees there were having a midyear
pause, but trees with dense foliage, flowers, fruit, and growing grass
were to be seen everywhere. The temperature was that of a northern June.
By night we made our beds on the ground without discomfort from cold,
and by day we were under the heat of a summer sun. There was certainly
nothing in the climate to make one feel the need of more clothing or
shelter than would protect from excessive heat or rain.

Then the abundance of food, both animal and vegetable, obtainable in
that region seemed to me to do away with