Across the Everglades; A Canoe Journey of Exploration (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Miami?Fowey Rocks Light-House?Florida Wreckers ?Vaseline a la Seminole?Soldier Key?The Habitat of the Crocodilus Americanus?The North American Alligator. original idea was to start from either the head of the Miami River or the head of New River and take a general westerly course, which would carry me through the very centre of the unexplored and unknown portion. On mature deliberation I gave up this route, and decided to enter from the west coast, in the vicinity of the Ten Thousand Islands archipelago, and come out on the Atlantic. The reason for my change of direction was this: Going west, I would come out upon an entirely uninhabited coast; the distance from the edge of the Glades to the Gulf of Mexico is great, and after leaving the fresh water I would not be able to carry a sufficient quantity in the canoes to reach any spot where I could procure more, and it would be impossible for me to indicate a definite place where a boatcould meet me. On the other hand, going first around to the Gulf with a good load of supplies and fresh water after making the journey across, I would carry the fresh water to within a very few miles of the Everglades, and on the other side be sure to strike Mr. Flagler's new railroad, which was just completed to Miami. Deciding on this latter plan, the first requisite was to procure a boat of suitable size in which to proceed around the coast with my two canoes, my entire outfit, and about one hundred gallons of water. After looking over many boats at Miami, I could find nothing that suited me, many of them being unnecessarily large and drawing too much water. I wished nothing that drew over two feet. At last I was told of a boat that was on the ways at Cocoa- nut Grove, which if I liked and put in order I could get on reas...