This point is the best for spiritual circles that could be imagined—no affinities that are inharmonious to come in, and prevent those mystic rappers which have been promising to benefit the world so wonderfully for more than twenty years, but never, as yet, developed any important truths.
The united family live here. The spirits have revealed to the husband that in another world “they will be married, as in this.” He says “he never wants another wife but the one he has got.” His well-chosen consort has lost nearly all her teeth, and the spirits which she has interviewed on the subject of dentistry have promised her a “new set” when she commences her spiritual life. If all the toothless people in the world were to wait for a new supply of grinders until they arrived in another world, the dentists would soon starve out in this.
No part of the world furnishes a greater variety of the finny tribe than this coast, and fisheries are being established in the vicinity. Sharks, sixteen or eighteen feet in length, make their appearance in company with devil-fish of enormous size. Jew-fish, weighing three or four hundred pounds, together with tarpons of one hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds, are quite common. Schools of mullet swarm in these waters, constituting an article of commerce. Green and loggerhead turtle are taken, and form a lucrative traffic.
An old Spanish sailor on duty tells us he can remember when the buccaneers landed on this island with their stolen goods and secreted them. This class of people were descended from the French, and subsisted upon a kind of smoked meat called boucan, from which they derived their name.
These buccaneers assumed martial names, known only among themselves. Their clothing was of a most repulsive character, consisting of a filthy shirt, colored with the blood of animals they had killed, belted with a leather-thong over trousers to match, while hung to their belts were Dutch knives and a saber; a brimless hat and hog-skin shoes completed their toilet. They never attacked vessels on their way to America, but on their return, grappling the largest and firing into their port-holes with such accuracy the gunners were unable to return the fire. They cherished a great antipathy to the Spaniards, because they had captured the portion of country from them that they claimed. They were a terror to all commercial enterprises in the Spanish Colonies, also crippling the agricultural prospects. Jean Lafitte, their leader, died at Appalachicola, where his body lay in state several days, when it was visited by many people from long distances.
The breeze is now freshening a little: raise the foresail, mainsail, and jib, when we are moving at the rapid rate of a mile in two hours. Even in midwinter, at noonday, the merry sunshine comes beaming down in this latitude with intense fervor. Finally a dead calm ensues, and we are prisoners on the high seas. The zephyrs are nooning in their sylvan bowers, while the heat has to be endured peaceably as possible—like all other things, it terminates. The great orb of day has performed his duty well—resembling a successful conqueror, he descends triumphantly, in his chariot of fire, beneath the briny waves—a golden train of glory is left behind him, while the charming blue sky and sunset are mirrored upon the sea, each alternate wave being a reflection from the sunbeams. Poets may sing, “Beautiful isles of the sea,” but before they had spent much time in this desolate spot, it would be, “Lonely isles of the sea, when shall I be where the face of human beings will gladden my heart, and the smiles of friendship beam upon my pathway again?”
We are hopeful yet, as Boca Grande is reached—the entrance to Charlotte Harbor—then Point Blanco, afterward Point Kautivo, where a poor preacher was captured and murdered for money. Now we are sailing through seas once the hiding-place of pirates, where much gold is said to be buried which was captured from a frigate on her passage to France.
One of these numerous islands is now the residence of a professional privateer in by-gone days, but who has since returned to private life, pursuing a civilized vocation. On another island in the vicinity lived Felippe, a Spaniard, with his three Indian wives. After the close of the last Seminole war, when orders were issued by the Federal Government for the savages to leave Florida, his wives, belonging to the tribe, were included in the edict. The Federal officers induced Felippe to leave home, that they might rob him of his concubines and fourteen children. After his departure all were more easily persuaded than Polly, his last love, whom he had seduced from an Indian guide. However, after much persuasion, she was reconciled by a purse being made up for her benefit. When Felippe returned he was perfectly inconsolable for the loss of his wives and children, and, on being informed Polly was prevailed upon to go by giving her money, he replied, “O Polly go to hell for money!”
Punta Rassa, our landing-place now, is situated over one hundred miles from Key West, and twenty-two miles from Fort Myres, opposite Synabel Island. The waters of the gulf here, being confined in a small compass, rush with fearful rapidity during a gale. The Federal Post was destroyed in 1844. From this point also were collected and shipped, during the Florida war, many of the wives and children of the Seminoles. Here the land part of the International Telegraph Line terminates—the wire leaping from mid-air into the Gulf of Mexico, to remain in old Neptune’s bed, undisturbed by winds or waves, and only agitated by the most important events taking place in the world. There is but one house here of any size, built by the Government during the late war for commissary stores, and now occupied by the telegraph company. The musquitoes are so thick the clerks have an operating-room, partitioned off in the center of the building with thin domestic, containing their apparatus. These insects being of such gigantic proportions, and making such vigorous moves, netting would offer no obstruction to their blood-thirsty operations. They can jump through an ordinary net as easily as a frog breaks a spider-web. Here is a signal-station, the agent stopping in a tent. All that induces any of the operators to remain is the high wages they receive, which compensates them in a manner for the deprivations they suffer in the loss of society.
From this point large quantities of cattle are annually shipped to Cuba, the facilities for loading being superior to any on the coast.