These complaints are characteristic of new settlements, usually disappearing after the land has been cleared a few years. They can be generally avoided by care in habits of life, and the moderate use of some bitter tonic. All who are exposed should be on their guard, avoiding excesses, over-work, getting chilled, the night dews, damp clothing, etc.
One fall I ascended the Ocklawaha river in a “pole-barge”—a large scow propelled by poles. At night we fastened the boat to a tree, and slept at some neighboring house. The captain and several of the “darkies” had a diurnal shake, with great regularity, and I entered hardly a single house from Palatka to Ocala in which one or more of the family were not complaining of the same disease. I had no quinine with me, and in default of it used as a preventive a strong tincture of the peel of the bitter-sweet orange. Either through its virtues or good luck, I escaped an attack, quite to the surprise of my companions. I repeat, however, that during the winter there is no danger from this source, and even during the sickly season an enlightened observance of the rules of health will generally protect the traveler.
4. VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE.
The traveler who, for the first time, visits a southern latitude, has his attention most strongly arrested by the new and strange forms of vegetable life. I shall mention some of those which give the scenery of Florida its most peculiar features.
The most abundant is the saw palmetto, chamærops Adansonii. This vigorous plant is found in all parts of the peninsula, flourishing equally well in the pine barren and the hammock. It throws up its sharp-edged leaves some four or five feet in length, from a large, round root, which is, in fact, a trunk, extending along the surface of the ground. The young shoots and inner pith of the root are edible, and were often eaten by the Indians.
The cabbage palm, another species of Chamærops, is one of the most beautiful of trees. It raises its straight, graceful trunk to a height of 50, 60 and 100 feet, without a branch, and then suddenly bursts into a mass of dark green, pendant fronds. In the center of this mass, enveloped in many folds, is found the tender shoot called the “cabbage.” It tastes like a raw chestnut, and was highly prized by the Indians. This palm is not found north of St. Augustine, and is only seen in perfection about Enterprise, and further south.
The live oak and cypress are the tenants of the low grounds. The former has a massive trunk, much esteemed for ship timber, spreading branches, and small green leaves. It is a perennial, and is not found farther north than South Carolina. The cypress stands in groups. Its symmetrical shaft rises without branches to a considerable height, and then spreads out numerous horizontal limbs, bearing a brown and scanty foliage. The base of the trunk is often enlarged and distorted into strange shapes, while scattered through the swamps are abortive attempts at trees, a foot or two thick and five or six feet in height, ending in a round, smooth top. These are called “cypress knees.”
Two parasitic plants abound in the forests, the mistletoe and the Spanish moss, tillandsia usneoides. The former has bright green leaves and red berries. The latter attaches itself to the cypress and live oak, and hangs in long gray wreaths and ragged masses from every bough in the low lands.
The southern shores and islands are covered with the mangrove, a species of the rhizophora. It is admirably adapted to shore building. The seed grows to a length of five or six inches before it leaves its calyx, when it resembles in form and color an Havana cigar. When it drops into the water it floats about until it strikes a beach, where it rapidly takes root and shoots out branches. Each branch sends down its own root, and soon the shore is covered with a dense growth, which in time rises to a height of twenty or thirty feet, and prevents the sand from any further shifting.
Two varieties of a plant called by the Seminoles koonta, bread, grow luxuriantly in the south. The red koonta, the smilax china of botanists, is a thrifty, briary vine, with roots like a large potato. The white koonta, a species of zamia, has large fern-like leaves and a root like a parsnip. Both were used by the Indians as food, and yield from 25 to 30 per cent. of starch.