The abundance of game on the shore ridge from Cape Sable to the Miami, led it to be chosen as a favorite spot of resort by the Indians, and it is still known distinctively as the “Hunting Grounds.” Its character is quite uniform. Near the shore is a breadth of rolling prairie land at points quite narrow, at others six miles in width, and elevated from three to eight or ten feet above high water. This is backed by a ridge about one quarter of a mile wide, covered with pines and black mangroves.
Most of the keys are cut by deep lagoons, and the whole of their surfaces are under water at high tide. Only a few have any soil fit for vegetables, and settlements upon them are very scarce. Old and New Matacumba have springs of fresh water, and were one of the last resorts of the ancient Caloosa Indians. Dove and Tea Table Keys are said to have the richest soil, “the best I have seen in Florida,” says Mr. Wainright, of the U. S. Coast Survey.
9. THE WESTERN COAST.
Steamers from Key West touch at all the principal points on the western or Gulf coast of the peninsula.
This coast is very much the same in character throughout its whole extent. It is an almost continuous belt of marsh, cut by innumerable creeks and bayous, extending from five to fifteen miles into the interior. Thousands of small islands covered with stunted mangroves, and wholly or in part overflowed at high water, conceal the main land. The channels between them are usually shallow, with mud bottoms, and in parts, the slope of the shore is so gradual that low water exposes a mud flat one to two miles wide.
From Key West to St. Marks there are two tides daily, in the twenty-four (lunar) hours, one, the highest, rising from one foot to one foot six inches. From St. Marks to the Mississippi the smaller tide disappears, so there remains but one daily.
Immediately north of Cape Sable, which shows from the sea a sand-beach three feet high, are the Thousand Isles, some few of which were formerly cultivated by Spanish planters. Charlotte Harbor, between latitude 26 degrees 30 seconds and 27 degrees, is entered by the Boca Grande, which has fifteen feet of water at low tide. The bay itself has a depth of three or four fathoms. At its southern extremity it receives the waters of Caloosahatchee river. This stream has a depth of twelve feet for thirty-five or forty miles, and with a little expense could be rendered navigable for steamboats. The lower part of its course is through swamps, but about twenty-five miles up, it flows through high lands covered with palms, oak, pine, and palmetto.
Between Charlotte Harbor and Sarasota Bay the shore forms a straight line of white sand beach several feet in height, and covered with pine and cypress. Sarasota Bay is about twenty miles long, and one to four broad, dotted with numerous mangrove islets. Its depth is about eight feet.
North of Tampa bay are several small rivers, the Pithlo-chas-kotee, or boat-building river, the Chassahowitzka, the Crystal, the Homosassa, and the Wethlocco-chee or Withlacooche. Their banks are low and marshy, producing little of value except a fine variety of cedar. Much of this is exported to France and England for the manufacture of lead pencils.
In the coves where the mud is not too deep oyster banks are numerous, and on almost every little stream the traveler finds the shell heaps left by the aborigines of the country. One of these of unusual size and interest, on the Crystal River, I have described in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1866, p. 356.