SCENE ON THE OKLAWAHA RIVER, FLORIDA.
The air of this southern region is not only languorous but, in the piney districts particularly, is balsamic, and hence thousands of consumptives go to Florida for relief which they cannot find elsewhere. The Everglades are not what they were formerly pictured to be before exploration revealed that instead of impenetrable swamps they are sections of very thickly timbered lands, whose only drawback are spiney-palmettos, which render travel through them very laborious. But at several places I saw parties of consumptives encamped not far from Indian River, and also in the vicinity of Lake Worth, where they spent their time in hunting and fishing, and claimed great benefits from the exercise as well as from the restoratives contained in the air.
Returning from our trip down Indian River, we left the steamboat at Titusville and took train for Enterprise, at which point we embarked on boat for a run down the St. John’s River as far as Palatka. The journey was very different from that on Indian River, yet the sensation of pleasure was not wanting, for the stream, though the largest in Florida, is, nevertheless, characteristic, sluggish, rather shallow and margined with a thick growth of timber and brush-wood. The landings, while more important than those on Indian River, are generally small villages whose principal population are negroes. The industries in Florida are not varied as in other States, but consist mainly of fruit growing, fishing and phosphate digging. Manufacturing there is none, practically, and the people derive their largest revenue from tourists, who pay as much for oranges, cocoanuts and pineapples at the places where they are grown as is charged for the fruit in our Northern cities. Yet there are signs of rapid growth in Florida, and the State has a bright future, for it is settling up at a marvelous pace, and with an excellent class of immigrants.
AN ORANGE GROVE NEAR PALATKA, FLORIDA.—A full-grown orange tree, loaded to the ground with its yellow, ripe, luscious fruit, is a delightful object to gaze upon. Oranges do not drop from the trees of their own accord as soon as they are matured, like most other fruits, but they hang by the stem until they are plucked off, and it is said that the longer they remain the sweeter and juicier do they become. Experience seems to prove the truth of this theory, for we have never eaten oranges elsewhere so deliciously sweet as when we took them from the tree with our own hands and ate them on the spot. Owing to the peculiarity of the fruit it is no uncommon thing to see ripe oranges on a tree that is in full bloom for another crop.
EXCURSION LAUNCH ON THE RUN, FLORIDA.