Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/300

Rh leap about: and the monsters of the river swam and swim still around us, pondering, as it seem, on our vessel and its provisions. The cruel sportsman is no longer with us, and we, in the Sarah Spalding, live at peace with the whole world, and merely, like the crocodiles, ponder about our breakfast.

Later.—We were bent on having fresh fish for breakfast, and therefore our captain let a couple of negroes row out in a boat nearer to the shore, and throw out a couple of nets, which were thrown out and taken in again at once; and in ten minutes we were breakfasting on a most delicious fish, which resembled flounders in taste. No fishermen as yet dwell on these banks, and the river swarms with life.

In the afternoon we commenced our return. I shall not advance any farther south in Florida, but I see here the character of the country and its scenery in this southern portion. The whole of this part of the country is low, and abounds in swampy ground and fogs, as well as in forests of firwood, called everglades, which are said to combine an amount of animal life which is truly astonishing. The natural historian, Agasiz, who saw these everglades for the first time this spring and summer, clasped his hands in admiration and devotion at the sight of these hitherto unknown riches of nature. Here, and yet farther south towards the Mexican Gulf, the country becomes still more flat, and the vegetation is divided between the half tropical, which I had already seen, and vast forests of Pinus australis, or light wood, in everyday language. Indians of the Seminole and Creek nations still live in these wild regions, and are dangerous to emigrants. In the most southern portion of Florida it is said that the cocoa-palm and the banana, might be cultivated. What an empire, what a world is North America, embracing all climates, natural scenery, and productions. It is indeed an empire for all the nations of the earth.