f my
work in the following report.

On account of causes beyond my control the paper does not treat of these
Indians as fully as I had intended it should. Owing to the ignorance
prevailing even in Florida of the locations of the homes of the Seminole
and also to the absence of routes of travel in Southern Florida, much
of my time at first was consumed in reaching the Indian country. On
arriving there, I found myself obliged to go among the Indians ignorant
of their language and without an interpreter able to secure me
intelligible interviews with them except in respect to the commonest
things. I was compelled, therefore, to rely upon observation and upon
very simple, perhaps sometimes misunderstood, speech for what I have
here placed on record. But while the report is only a sketch of a
subject that would well reward thorough study, it may be found to
possess value as a record of facts concerning this little-known remnant
of a once powerful people.

I have secured, I think, a correct census of the Florida Seminole by
name, sex, age, gens, and place of living. I have endeavored to present
a faithful portraiture of their appearance and personal characteristics,
and have enlarged upon their manners and customs, as individuals and as
a society, as much as the material at my command will allow; but under
the disadvantageous circumstances to which allusion has already been
made, I have been able to gain little more than a superficial and
partial knowledge of their social organization, of the elaboration among
them of the system of gentes, of their forms and methods of government,
of their tribal traditions and modes of thinking, of their religious
beliefs and practices, and of many other things manifesting what is
distinctive in the life of a people. For these reasons I submit this
report more as a guide for future investigation than as a completed
result.

At the beginning of my visit I found but one Seminole with whom I could
hold even the semblance of an English conversation. To him I am indebted
for a large part of the material here collected. To him, in particular,
I owe the extensive Seminole vocabulary now in possession of the Bureau
of Ethnology. The knowledge of the Seminole language which I gradually
acquired enabled me, in my intercourse with other Indians, to verify and
increase the information I had received from him.

In conclusion, I hope that, notwithstanding the unfortunate delays which
have occurred in