"Pardon me. As a native Floridian, I have much enjoyed hearing you repeat that poem relating to my State."
This led to a pleasant conversation, during which he introduced us to his wife as being one of the aborigines. We expressed much interest in this statement, and finally persuaded him to give us an account of his courtship, which, with some amplifications, was substantially as follows:
It is midnight in the vast everglades of Florida. The mammoth forest trees seem to support the arch of heaven as the pillars uphold the great dome of the nation's capitol. Here and there the century-old orange trees are resplendent with the golden globes of the luscious fruit, and millions of flowering vines beautify even the dead monarchs of the woods.
All these tropical splendors are illumined by the rays of the full hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy Spanish moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. From swamp and foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and hootings of the melancholy owls. Here in this forest primeval, mid the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, uncontaminated by the trammels of civilization.
But what is that? Surely human forms swinging noiselessly from limb to limb over dark pools where the deadly moccasins and ferocious alligators slumber, over stagnant lagoons beautified by great lilies, and densely populated with rainbow colored fishes, and gaily decorated by water-fowl now all motionless in the embrace of sleep, the brother of death.
The moonbeams reveal a band of broad-shouldered, copper-colored aborigines, who once ruled over the whole of this fair peninsular. They are returning, with packs of supplies strapped upon their backs, from a trading journey to the city of Kissimmee, where they have exchanged the fruits of their hunting for many-colored calicos, ammunition, and alas for the once-noble red men! fire-water. They had left their canoes when they could no longer be floated, and are now returning in this, the only possible manner, to their fertile oasis, protected from the white men by many miles of bogs into which all foot travelers would sink to unknown slimy depths and death.
On they come in single file, hand over hand from tree to tree, their long legs dangling in the air, led by Tiger-tail, the chief of the survivors of the most intelligent and powerful of all the Indian tribes. Suddenly the leader stops, gives the low cry of the Ring-dove, which halts his followers, and suspended in air, gazes at the sleeping form of a young white man, reclining, with his rifle beside him, on a hammock which rises dry and grass-covered above the surrounding morasses.
Motioning his band to follow, the chief drops noiselessly beside the sleeper, stealthily seizes the gun, revolver, and bowie-knife of the helpless victim, hands them to others, and shouts "Humph, wake up!" The pale-face reaches for his weapons, and finding them gone, jumps to his feet, gazing without flinching at his stalwart captors.
"Who you be?" grunted the chief. "What for you here?"
"I am Henry Lee of Lawtey," was the calm reply, "and I am hunting."